See it at the Movies

WOMAN IN GOLD

Joyce and Don Fowler
Posted 4/15/15

(Inspirational true story)

Helen Mirren stars as Maria Altmann, an elderly California shopkeeper who fought the Austrian government over a famous painting that she claimed was rightfully …

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See it at the Movies

WOMAN IN GOLD

Posted

(Inspirational true story)

Helen Mirren stars as Maria Altmann, an elderly California shopkeeper who fought the Austrian government over a famous painting that she claimed was rightfully hers.

This true story is inspirational, even if it is a bit slow and overly sentimental, thanks to Mirren’s performance as the opinionated and demanding senior citizen.

She has a young, inexperienced lawyer (Ryan Reynolds) who risks everything to devote his time and energies to her nearly impossible case.

We learn much about Maria through flashbacks that take her back to her childhood in Vienna during a dark part of Austria’s history, when the Nazis drove the Jews out of their homeland and stole their valuable art. Maria and her husband escaped and made their home in America, but she remained committed to recovering a valuable painting of her aunt, titled “The Woman in Gold.”

Mirren and Reynolds look like the odd couple as they slowly get to know and understand each other after a very shaky start. They travel to the beautiful city of Vienna, where the government officials will do everything in their power to prevent the Americans from reclaiming what they believe is rightfully theirs.

Aided in their quest by an Austrian journalist (Daniel Bruhl), the couple fight the Austrian courts and eventually take the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

The story is all the more interesting because it is true. Postscripts will bring you up to date as to what eventually happened to the painting and the characters.

The movie is a bit slow and plodding, but the story about justice and restitution is powerful.

Rated PG-13, with some profanity.

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