{"id":621629,"date":"2026-09-11T17:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T17:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621629\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T17:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T17:32:09","slug":"the-housewife-naomi-watts-is-riveting-as-a-60s-woman-with-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621629\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Housewife’: Naomi Watts is Riveting as a ’60s Woman With Secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tArriving at a time when accountability would appear to be an increasingly scarce commodity, The Housewife, which was handed its world premiere on the opening night of the Toronto International Film Festival, shares a lot with last year\u2019s fest entry, Nuremberg<\/a>, with its themes of complicity and the thorny pursuit of justice.<\/p>\n

\n\tSet in New York two decades after the end of the Second World War, the first feature by Canadian filmmaker Ben Shirinian with a compelling script by Alyssa Hill, follows a New York Times reporter\u2019s investigation of a war criminal believed to be living a \u201csimple life\u201d in Queens.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Housewife\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tWatts makes it worth your time.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Toronto International Film Festival (Special Presentations)
Cast: Naomi Watts, Tye Sheridan, Michael Imperioli, Luke Evans, Lena Olin, Debi Mazar
Director: Ben Shirinian
Screenwriter: Alyssa Hill
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 42 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tActing on a lead from famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, journalist Joseph Lelyveld (Tye Sheridan<\/a>) turns up at the immaculate home of Russell Ryan (Luke Evans<\/a>), where he\u2019s greeted hospitably by his Austrian wife, Hermine (Naomi Watts<\/a>, whose performance is as expertly measured as her wardrobe). Having just aced her U.S. citizenship interview with immigration agent Anthony DeVito (Michael Imperioli), Hermine makes for the model \u201960s American homemaker, whether baking oatmeal raisin cookies for church events, tending to a sick neighbor (Debi Mazar), or insisting on mending a loose button on Lelyveld\u2019s jacket sleeve. In his conversations with Hermine, Joseph suspects that she may not be aware of her husband\u2019s purported past, but it is soon revealed that Russell\u2019s past (actually that of a Long Island construction worker) is not the one that should concern him.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt turns out that Mrs. Ryan is actually Hermine Braunsteiner, a concentration camp guard who married Ryan five years earlier and set up house in America, \u201cwhere you can be anyone you want to be.\u201d By the time Joseph makes that realization, he\u2019s already conflicted by those earlier protective feelings he had for her. But he nevertheless publishes the piece that will lead to her extradition to West Germany, where she would ultimately face trial and be convicted for complicity in the murders of over 1,000 people.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut his story doesn\u2019t exactly make for a done deal, with the U.S. government apparently in no hurry to open a review that would shine a spotlight on its inability to keep the bad guys out of the country.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the most part, the heart of Shirinian\u2019s feature debut is less concerned with those hard facts than it is with what he calls \u201cour moral blinders which often begin with familiarity,\u201d and it makes for a more evocative approach to Alyssa Hill\u2019s script, which was on the 2016 Black List.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeriod detail is neatly provided by TV ads, Jean-Andre Carriere\u2019s nostalgic production design and costume designer Anette Cseri\u2019s inner mood-keyed frocks, which call to mind Edith Head\u2019s Hitchcock collaborations for Vertigo and The Birds.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Housewife is certainly at its most potent during those earlier sequences, when Sheridan\u2019s Lelyveld is under the mistaken impression that Hermine Ryan is the unwitting victim rather than the unrepentant perpetrator. The simmering push-pull dynamic in their encounters proves beguiling. Once Hermine\u2019s carefully manicured facade is lifted, the drama settles into less intriguing territory, especially during the more generic extradition hearings. The notable exception is the always effective Lena Olin, whose brief turn as a concentration camp survivor attesting to Hermine\u2019s true sadistic nature packs a quiet charge.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the film\u2019s biggest asset is, obviously, Watts, who fearlessly digs deep and comes up with some of the best work of her career. Lurking just beneath that keenly studied veneer of the quintessential 60s American homemaker informed by Betty Crocker and Miss Clairol is an unrepentant dark soul and barely concealed rage. While there are a few times the script requires her character to flirt with something just short of melodrama, she admirably remains firmly rooted in her painstakingly orchestrated surroundings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arriving at a time when accountability would appear to be an increasingly scarce commodity, The Housewife, which was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60,105677,801,233943,237826,263958,207526],"class_list":["post-621629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-luke-evans","tag-naomi-watts","tag-tiff-2026","tag-toronto-2026","tag-toronto-international-film-festival-2026","tag-tye-sheridan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}