Naomi Watts Plays Suburban Nazi in 'The Housewife'
A review from the Toronto Film Festival criticizes Naomi Watts's new film 'The Housewife' as an overcooked melodrama.
Naomi Watts stars as a secret Nazi housewife in the new 1960s-set drama 'The Housewife,' which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. According to a review in The Guardian, the film is a 'stuffy and stodgy slab of self-serious, Oscar bait' that becomes a 'plodding procedural' and an 'overheated courtroom drama.'
A Heavy-Handed Premise
The film opens with a close-up of a whistling kettle, a sign the reviewer calls a heavy-handed 'wink' that tensions are set to boil. It follows Hermine, an Austrian-born woman living a picture-perfect suburban life in Queens, New York, with her American husband, played by Luke Evans. Her facade is investigated by an ambitious New York Times journalist, Joseph, portrayed by Tye Sheridan, who receives a tip about a Nazi living in the city.
Strangely handled as a first-act twist, the film reveals that Hermine herself is the Nazi, having misled Joseph. She claims she was merely a nurse during the war, saving lives rather than taking them. 'You do not know war in America,' she tells the journalist, arguing he is ignorant of the Holocaust's reality. Joseph, however, remains convinced a Nazi is a Nazi, especially as he uncovers new information.
A Shift in Genre and Tone
After briefly flirting with becoming a 'perverse domestic psycho-thriller,' where Hermine's interest in Joseph wavers between maternal and sexual, the narrative shifts. It becomes a procedural involving an immigration officer played by Michael Imperioli before culminating in a courtroom drama. The reviewer states the script from Alyssa Hill is 'dramatically inert and psychologically shallow,' failing to raise its themes of complicity, forgiveness, and citizenship beyond familiar territory.
Performance and Execution
Naomi Watts, who delivers a decent Austrian accent, is described as 'notably less convincing' in this role compared to her recent work. The review finds her performance 'a little unsteady' as she handles Hermine's deceptions, lacking the 'underlying chill' needed for the character. The film is compared unfavorably to 'The Reader,' where Kate Winslet captured an 'unshakable oddness' that eludes Watts here.
First-time director Ben Shirinian achieves some 'effective period immersion,' though Montreal unconvincingly stands in for New York. In his introductory speech at the premiere, Shirinian explained he wanted to explore how the worst behavior can be found in familiar packaging. The reviewer concludes, however, that 'films about the banality of evil shouldn't be quite this banal.' The film is seeking distribution.
