Björn Runge makes intimate dramas worth watching for the attention he gives his actors. His patient direction serves The Wife well, though he lets the screenplay explain too much of what its performances have already made clear.
Fi1m perspective
Glenn Close's small reactions in The Wife (2017) are enough to make us wonder what Joan Castleman might say next. Runge gives her time, and the strain of living beside Jonathan Pryce's successful, needy Joe becomes absorbing before anyone needs to explain it. We felt uneasy watching them together because the actors make their years of accommodation convincing without making the marriage comfortable. This is good, patient direction, held back by a screenplay that too often supplies the answers.
His interest in difficult relationships was established well before that English-language turn. After his feature debut, Harry & Sonja (1996), Daybreak (2003), Mouth to Mouth (2005) and Happy End (2011) formed a loose trilogy concerned with families and relationships. His camerawork also grew stiller, moving away from the handheld images and close-ups of the earlier films. The Wife, his first major international project, brought that quieter approach to a marriage in which much goes unsaid. The later Swedish drama Burn All My Letters (2022) adapted a novel by Alex Schulman.
Ulf Brantås's cinematography keeps Close's reactions legible without demanding a larger display. Mark Leese's production design leaves the people more interesting than their surroundings. Runge's theatre work and his close collaboration with actors help explain that preference for giving a scene time. It is a useful instinct here. Jocelyn Pook's music is less persuasive than the pauses, when Close leaves us wondering how much Joan will allow herself to say.
The difficulty is knowing when to leave those pauses alone. Jane Anderson's screenplay, adapted from Meg Wolitzer's novel, explains what Close has already suggested, while flashbacks interrupt the more absorbing scenes between the older couple. Lena Dahlberg-Runge's editing cannot make every return to the past feel necessary. Runge's care with actors is evident, but he does not always protect their work from a script determined to make the marriage easy to read. Start with The Wife for Close and Pryce, but expect to be told a little more about their marriage than we needed to know.
Biography
Björn Runge is a Swedish film director and author. Born on 21 June 1961 in Lysekil, he has worked in film since the age of 20, including with director Roy Andersson, and graduated from the Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm in 1989.
His early recognition came with the short film Greger Olsson köper en bil (1991). His feature debut was Harry & Sonja (1996). Runge received Guldbagge Awards for best director and screenplay for Om jag vänder mig om (Daybreak, 2003), which also won the Blue Angel at the Berlin Film Festival. He was nominated for the Nordic Council Film Prize for Mun mot mun (2005).
Runge directed the English-language drama The Wife (2017), starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. His other features include Happy End (2011) and Burn All My Letters (2022).
