THE power of all-or-nothing acting to grip you in its talons is showcased front and centre in this riveting, thought-provoking literary-themed drama which puts one marriage under a microscope to see where the cracks lie.

Adapted from Meg Wolitzer’s 2003 book, the film takes place in the early 1990s and centres on Joan Castleman (Glenn Close), who has been a stalwart supportive presence in the life of her long-time husband and celebrated author, Joe (Jonathan Pryce). One night they receive the phone call they’ve been waiting for telling Joe that he has won the coveted Nobel Prize for Literature.

They travel, along with their aspiring novelist son, David (Max Irons), to Stockholm to prepare for the ceremony. Joan and Joe are then forced to examine their decades-long marriage as David’s wannabe biographer, Nathaniel (Christian Slater), threatens to unearth long-buried secrets.

What are those secrets and what would make them so damaging to the here and now? We are given increasingly extended glimpses of that as we go back and forth between the present day and the 1960s when Joan first met Joe as the student to his impassioned literary professor.

Working from a deftly adapted script by Jane Anderson, Swedish director Björn Runge avoids the pitfalls that often accompany flashback-reliant narratives by using them as a way to open up old wounds and shrewdly fill in blanks as realisations and admissions come to light in the couple’s later years.

The director being native to the country in which the film is mostly set also brings an easy-going authenticity which only further highlights the raw power of the drama and the performances.

Close reminds us why she’s one of the best in the business with an absolute powerhouse performance here as a woman caught between her genuine love for the man she married and being sick of being defined by his success and his need for her to constantly validate everything he does. Pryce is equally powerful as the loving but undoubtedly egotistical writer scared to death of people finding out dangerous truths as much as losing the woman to whom, by his own admission, he owes his career.

The film is nothing short of compelling whenever they’re on-screen, so much so that the flashback scenes, through no fault of younger actors Annie Starke (Close’s real-life daughter) and Harry Lloyd, have an air of impatience about them as you wish it would get back to spending more time with their older selves.

The drama astutely deals with everything from the nature of influence to the importance of genuine ideas over technical writing prowess. It transcends into utterly electrifying territory whenever the central couple lob venomous bombs of truth at one another like Liz Taylor and Richard Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? or Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight.

The joy of this enthralling film is watching two dynamite performers face off and the power of it lies in witnessing how their confrontation brings pained truth to the surface.