Long before the relevant authorities do, you’ll figure out the secret that immigrant homemaker Hermine Ryan (née Braunsteiner) holds close to her chest in “The Housewife” — a giveaway that may be the fault of some heavy-handed direction and scripting, but speaks to the detail and integrity of Naomi Watts‘ lead performance, which often seems a step ahead of the film around her. A true story of a Nazi-hunting case in mid-1960s New York City, Ben Shirinian‘s debut feature is most absorbing as a character study of a woman lying to herself, at least as much as she’s lying to...
Monitoring Antisemitism Intel
