Glenn Close is the most overdue living actor who needs an Oscar, racking up six nominations without a single win. Her chance of finally winning just increased based on the footage we now have of her new film, The Wife, which has a new trailer this week.
In The Wife, Close plays Joan Castleman, the titular wife of a famed author (Jonathan Pryce) about to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. This is the catalyst that forces Joan to confront the past 40 years of supporting her husband to the detriment of her own ambitions. As seen in the trailer, released Monday by distributor Sony Pictures Classics, she has a very juicy leading role here, not unlike her Oscar nominated work in Fatal Attraction and Dangerous Liaisons.
Close was a perennial Oscar nominee in the ’80s, earning Supporting Actress nods for her first few roles in The World According to Garp (1982), The Big Chill (1983) and The Natural (1984). She became a “leading lady stawh” with her nominations for Fatal Attraction (1987) and Dangerous Liaisons (1988), two films for which she probably should have won. It took multiple decades but she finally returned to the Oscars in 2011 for “Albert Nobbs,” for which she was never in serious contention.
So will Close earn her Oscar win for The Wife? Early reviews suggest she’s at the top of her game, and if we’ve seen anything over the past few years at the Oscars it’s that voters want to atone for their sins. Notable overdue artists that finally earned Oscars in recent years include Leonardo DiCaprio, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, cinematographer Roger Deakins, screenwriter James Ivory and sound mixer Kevin O’Connell. If Sony Picture Classics (who distributed Still Alice and helped get Moore her Oscar) plays their cards right and emphasizes Close’s overdue status this award season, the Oscar could finally be hers. Here’s hoping.