Glenn Close makes unhappy families look good

‘THE WHOLE MALE-FEMALE THING IN THIS country is very volatile right now. I think many women are feeling used by men. They invest a lot in a relationship, in nurturing a man emotionally and in his career, but they have their own careers and emotions and they don’t get that nurturing in return.” These words are Glenn Close’s, and they offer a perfect description of her newest film, The Wife. But this quote is actually three decades old; she said it to this magazine in 1987, shortly after she finished Fatal Attraction.

If Close were trying to shake the specter of Alex Forrest—the bunny-boiling career woman who tried to destroy her married lover’s family in that movie, which remains Close’s most iconic role—The Wife’s Joan Castleman would be just the ticket. She’s everything Forrest was not: long-married, dutiful and supportive, a woman who has spent her life polishing so her spouse could shine. She’s neat and nurturing