Movie review | ‘Woman in Gold’ not getting the credit it deserves

Woman in Gold ****

I sat alone in the movie theater, one with some 300 seats, to watch “Woman In Gold,” a movie based on the remarkable true story of one woman’s fight against the Austrian government to restore property of her family’s stolen by the Nazis during WWII.

I saw “Selma” in the same theater; that time there were nine patrons. I can only hope that historical dramas such as “Selma” and “Woman In Gold” will eventually find a wider audience than the ones I’ve been witnessing as of late. The “Imitation Game,” another recent historical drama based on real people, bigotry and world-changing events, didn’t do much better.

All three are important films portraying pivotal moments in human and world history that need never be forgotten and should be required viewing (I’ve said this before) for all high school students.

In the case of “Woman In Gold,” Helen Mirren plays the late Maria Altmann, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust whose family lost everything, literally, including five valuable paintings of Gustav Klimt.

The most valuable Klimt was a painting of Altmann’s aunt, titled “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” an important and stunning work done in gold leaf and silver.

The movie, co-starring Ryan Reynolds against type as Altmann’s rookie American lawyer, time-jumps between the first days of Nazi occupation of Austria in the late 1930s, and the contemporary from 1998-2006. We witness the courtroom and personal drama unfold when Altmann and attorney Randol Schoenberg take their fight to reclaim the painting to the U.S. Supreme Court and beyond.

To date, the movie has not recouped its $11 million budget, and that’s a shame, because it discourages studios from producing movies of its type.

But is it any good? It is. It moves along slowly, but not too slowly, has a bit of excitement in a well-directed Nazi escape scene, but perhaps because it doesn’t include fast cars crashing through skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates, it will not gain the respect it deserves.

“Woman In Gold” is educational, historical and heart-wrenching as it considers the terrible plight Jews faced in Europe before and during WWII, but it’s also an engaging, entertaining and important work, that, like Maria Altmann’s family, deserves restitution.

This story was originally published April 15, 2015 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Movie review | ‘Woman in Gold’ not getting the credit it deserves."