KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

James Hitchcock The "Woman in Gold" of the title is a painting, Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I". (That Roman numeral was added to distinguish it from a second portrait of the same woman). Frau Bloch-Bauer was a beautiful young society lady from a wealthy Viennese Jewish family. She herself died in 1925, but the picture remained in the possession of her family until it was seized by the Nazis following the Anschluss of 1938. Klimt was not the Nazis' favourite artist- he was too modernistic for Hitler's ultra-conservative tastes- but he was not Jewish and was never officially condemned as "degenerate", so there was no ban on the public display of his art. In 1941 the painting was acquired by the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna where it hung for many years. (The Nazis were embarrassed by the fact that Klimt's sitter had been Jewish, so the name of the painting was changed to "Woman in Gold"). In 1998, however, Adele's last surviving relative, her niece Maria Altmann, now living in Los Angeles, began a legal fight to recover the stolen painting.The Austrian government resisted the claim doggedly, basing their opposition on the fact that in her will Adele had expressed the wish that the painting should hang in the Belvedere. There were, however, two problems with their defence. The first was that Adele had wished that the picture should only go to the Belvedere after the death of her husband Ferdinand, who was still alive in 1941. The second, and more serious, objection was that the painting was not actually Adele's to dispose of- it was legally Ferdinand's property, not hers.The film is based on the true story of this legal battle, concentrating on the relationship between Maria and her young lawyer, Randy Schoenberg. The two had a lot in common, both being descended from the cultured, intellectual Jewish haute bourgeoisie of Vienna. They shared a love of music; Randy was the grandson of the famous composer, Arnold Schoenberg, and Maria's late husband, Fritz, had been an opera singer. Intercut with the legal action are scenes showing Maria's early life and her flight from Vienna to escape from the Nazis in 1938.I watched this film when it was recently shown in television, partly because I am an art lover and partly because of my respect for Helen Mirren, but in many way it proved a disappointment. Mirren as Maria Altmann was certainly good, as she normally is, but she was about the only good thing in this film. There have been many excellent films based upon court cases, but such courtroom dramas have nearly all been about criminal trials, focussing on conflicting evidence and dramatic scenes of cross-examination in the witness-box. Civil actions, which rely more on legal argument and precedents and which may not even involve any testimony from live witnesses, rarely make for such engrossing drama.The case of Republic of Austria v. Altmann does not prove an exception to the rule. The lengthy scenes of discussions and legal arguments are worthy but wordy, and the flashbacks to the 1930s (for some reason shot in a very dull, muted colour) do not provide much relief from the tedium. (We know from the beginning that Maria will survive, so there is little tension). The story of the wholesale looting of European art by the Nazis, of the legal fight for restitution and of the various moral issues involved is a potentially fascinating one; it deserved a better cinematic treatment than this. 5/10

rogerdarlington The lady in question is Adele Bloch-Bauer who was the subject of a magnificent painting, deploying lots of gold, by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. Following the Anschuss of 1938 when Germany took over Austria, this painting was one of many, many artefacts seized by the Nazis from Jewish families in occupied Europe.The film tells the story - a little fictionalised - of Adele's niece Maria Altmann who escaped from Vienna to live in California and, during the 1980s as an octogenarian, pursued an audacious claim to take back this painting and other Klimt works from the Austrian Government. Helen Mirren is brilliant as Altmann in another distinguished performance in a sparkling career during which she has played everything from "The Queen" to an assassin (RED"), while Ryan Reynolds is surprisingly good as her lawyer Randy Schoenberg in a role a million miles from "Green Lantern" or "Deadpool".There's a lot going on in this film: legal battles over the art work with some classic courtroom scenes, flashbacks (in sepia colours) to Altmann's earlier life in 1930s Vienna, and an evolving relationship between the irascible Altmann and the idealistic Schoenberg, both descendants of famous Austrians. This is not the kind of film that was ever going to be a major box office draw but it is certainly worth a home viewing.

l_rawjalaurence WOMAN IN GOLD mines the apparently inexhaustible subject of Nazi atrocities during World War Two. This time it centers around Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren), an Austrian refugee forced to leave her homeland after the Anschluss of 1938, when Hitler's troops invaded. They came in and stole many of the family's treasures, including valuable paintings by Gustav Klimt. Three years later the paintings were given to the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, where they are still on display.After burrowing through long-lost paperwork, Maria and her companion, hotshot lawyer Randy Schönberg (Ryan Reynolds), the grandson of another refugee, the Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg, decide to take on the museum in an attempt to restore the paintings - especially the eponymous "Woman in Gold" (a painting of Altmann's aunt) to their rightful owner. There follows a series of courtroom battles, following the familiar trope of the little person taking on the institution.While Mirren offers us a convincing Austro-English accent, she is manifestly too young for the role (the real Altmann was in her eighties when she began efforts to pursue the Belvedere through the courts). At times it seems as if Mirren is offering us a reprise of her role in THE QUEEN (2006), right down to the sliver of lip-gloss on her otherwise pale features. Reynolds doesn't have much to do except to put on a concerned expression, especially while trying to deal with his wife Pam (Katie Holmes), and stand up bravely in court against the apparently implacable attorney working for the Austrian government (Rolf Saxon).What redeems the film is its palpable seriousness of purpose. Production designer Jim Clay has worked hard to recreate the atmosphere in the immediate wake of the Anschluss, where cheering crowds of Hitler supporters are counterbalanced by antisemitic mobs keen to root out as many so-called "enemies of the state" as possible. Most of the sequences taking place in the past are photographed in washed-out colors (by Ross Emery), that serve the symbolic function of suggesting how the Nazi occupation deprived what had been a multicultural society of much of its life-blood.Based on historical fact, the outcome can be easily discerned from about halfway through the film. Nonetheless director Curtis prompts us to reflect on the ethics of the entire campaign - although Maria deserves to have her family property restored to her, is the persistent campaign conducted on her behalf really worth it? What good does it do to rake up the past, especially the series of traumatic events leading up to and including her enforced flight from her homeland?

snsh This movie is based on the ideal example of post-Nazi artwork recovery. The valuable piece of art was not just collected by the Jewish family, but was personally commissioned by them, and is a cherished painting of a family member.The movie goes on to tell a heartwarming non-linear story about the attempts to recover the painting and the tragic history of the family leading up to its seizure. The film does a great job of that. SPOILER ALERT Where the movie and the premise falls apart is the last line, right before the credits. The painting is taken from the country which has grown to love it and reunited with its rightful owner who... immediately sells it.That pretty much ruined the movie for me. The main characters claim to not be doing it for the money, but ultimately they take the money.This movie belongs on HGTV between show about international house flippers.