Institute History
Description
Milena is a middle-aged wife and mother ensconced comfortably behind a gate in an upscale suburb of Belgrade. She quietly tends to her looks, dutifully cooks and entertains, and meets her friends for choir practice. She makes love with her husband and they socialize jauntily with a group of old friends. But unsettling realities are beginning to seep into Milena’s consciousness and disrupt her ordered world. One day while cleaning, she happens upon a videotape that incriminates her husband in horrific war crimes. A Good Wife is the story of how this secret reverberates in Milena’s life and eventually changes her.
Thanks to a superb performance by Serbian actress Mirjana Karanovic, who also wrote the layered script and directed with aplomb, Milena’s combination of cautious reticence and regal decorum is mesmerizing. The camera lingers close on her face, revealing an interior conflict that would be otherwise imperceptible. There’s a quiet intensity in every scene, where drama is unleashed in subtle looks and gestures, and the legacy of the Balkan War lives on in the most intimate places.