Woman in Gold
Short description
Woman in Gold follows Maria Altmann, an elderly Jewish refugee living in the United States, as she tries to recover artworks that the Nazis took from her family in Vienna. The most valuable of these is Gustav Klimt's portrait of her aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer, long displayed in an Austrian museum. With Randol Schoenberg, a young and inexperienced lawyer, Maria pursues a legal claim against the Austrian government, which is unwilling to give up one of its best-known paintings. Her memories of wartime Vienna run alongside the case.
The film is a drama directed by Simon Curtis, written by Alexi Kaye Campbell and produced by David M. Thompson, Kris Thykier and Joanie Blaikie, with BBC Film and Origin Pictures behind it. Helen Mirren plays Maria, Ryan Reynolds plays Schoenberg, and Tatiana Maslany appears as the younger Maria, with Katie Holmes, Max Irons and Charles Dance in supporting roles. The film was released in March 2015 and runs 109 minutes.
It was made for about 11 million dollars and took roughly 62 million dollars worldwide, a strong return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 7.3 out of 10 from more than 62,000 votes, and on TMDB it also sits at 7.3, from a much smaller number of votes. A film critics' rating of 6 out of 10 from 155 reviews places it clearly below the audience scores. Woman in Gold was Curtis's second feature, arriving between My Week with Marilyn and Goodbye Christopher Robin.
What's left behind the scenes
- Randall Schoenberg is an American lawyer and genealogist from Los Angeles. He is also a distant relative of Maria Altman (1916-2011), who spent many years in legal battles against the Austrian government for the return of several paintings by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) that once belonged to her uncle.
- Aunt Adele's diamond necklace, which was given to Maria Altman after her wedding, was later worn by the wife of Hermann Göring.
- Prior to the escape shown in the film, Maria's husband, Fritz, was arrested by the Nazis and spent nearly two months in the Dachau concentration camp. They tried to force him to convince his brother Bernhard, who had already fled to France, to transfer his property to the Nazis. Fritz was eventually released and then placed under house arrest for three months, after which he escaped.
- The melody played during the wedding scene was written by Jewish composer and poet Mark Warszawski. Unlike in the film, it is now sung at various children's parties.
- The real E. Randall Schoenberg can be spotted in the final scene, when Maria is in her old apartment and raises a glass to make a toast.
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