MICHAEL LOMAX: ‘Woman in Gold’ shiny but not slick

Films can get a little predictable after a while. We already know the twists and turns. We already see the conflict on the horizon. We lean on acting and visual aesthetic to carry us through, but the work itself is mostly unmemorable. “Woman in Gold” is exactly this.

Helen Mirren stars as Maria Altmann, a Jewish WWII refugee from Austria who fled the country after Nazis confiscated her family’s expansive art collection, including the world famous “Woman in Gold” painting — the “Mona Lisa” of Austria. Almost 60 years later, Altmann unearths a series of letters detailing the family’s attempts to recover the stolen items. She further enlists the help of Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds), a struggling Californian lawyer, to sue the Austrian government for return of the art.

To the surprise of no one, Mirren does a fantastic job as the quick-witted and sharp-tongued Altmann. Something of a mix between sarcastic granny and rogue shopkeeper, Mirren is spry and engaging without ever wearing thin or growing old. Even Reynolds can drop his popular tongue-in-cheek humor in favor of a more serious and dynamic performance. But the solid acting can only carry this film so far.

The plot, while tightly scripted, is incredibly predictable. Altmann wants her family’s paintings back, but with them having sat in a Viennese gallery for more than a half-century, the Austrian government won’t just turn them over. Legal hurdles dog Altmann and Schoenberg every step of the way, and after several years of swimming through loopholes, Altmann is finally rewarded with the paintings.

Basically, the two-minute trailer could have walked you through everything I just said, and that’s not a good thing. You never feel as if Altmann could really lose the case, nor that she could ever feel any real danger. The drama in “Woman in Gold” takes place in courtrooms, and the only villains worth rooting against are the Nazis, which is way too easy.

If the film had to do with something a little more substantive than a painting, I might have more positive things to say. Altmann did have to face the terror of the Nazi regime, but until then she was an incredibly wealthy girl who came from a family of art patrons. And after finally getting the painting back, she immediately sells it for $135 million!

So was the point really to recover the prized painting? Or to just stick it one last time to the Austrian government? The conflict of interests undermines everything for me.

I can forgive most issues in a movie as long as its motivations are transparent. But “Woman in Gold” tries too hard to be sentimental, when the truth of the matter is that Altmann was probably more ruthless than Mirren’s performance might lead you to believe.

Money and greed sit right at the heart of “Woman in Gold,” and for all the wrong reasons. Mirren and Reynolds try their best to salvage what is an interesting story, but the cynic in me simply cannot overlook the fact that Altmann and Schoenberg had more than a hundred million reasons to try as hard as they did. That’s not to say the legal case wasn’t also a matter of principle, but that principle comes with a pretty hefty price tag all the same.

Michael Lomax is a writer-filmmaker currently at work on a film script to be set and shot in Albany.