Wife

Wife

Is this the way every woman, every wife, has to take?

1953 · 96 min · ★ 7.2 · Drama

Ten years into a marriage, the wife is disappointed by the husband's lack of financial success, meaning she has to work and can't treat herself and the husband finds the wife slovenly and mean-spirited: she neither cooks not cleans particularly well and is generally disagreeable. In turn, he alternately ignores her and treats her as a servant. Neither is particularly happy, not helped by their unsatisfactory lodgers. The husband is easily seduced by an ex-colleague, a widow with a small child who needs some security, and considers leaving his wife.

Directed by Mikio Naruse · Written by Toshiro Ide

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Streaming

Cast

Mieko Takamine Mihoko Nakagawa
Ken Uehara Toichi, Mihoko's husband
Rentaro Mikuni Tadashi Tanimura
Michiyo Aratama Yoshimi Niemura
Chieko Nakakita Eiko Matsuyama
Sanae Takasugi Setsuko Sakurai
Yatsuko Tan'ami Fusako Sagara
Hajime Izu Hirohisa Matsuyama
Yoshiko Tsubouchi Taeko Niemura
Tatsuya Ishiguro
Akira Tani Kito
Noriko Honma

Make it a double feature

3h 39m together

Wife

Floating Clouds

Both from Mikio Naruse.

More from Mikio NaruseSee all →

Yearning

Yearning · 1964

MovieDramaRomance

War widow Reiko rebuilds and runs the grocery shop in the house of her husband's family. Many years later, their business is threatened by a newly built supermarket and Reiko's in-laws plan to convert their small shop into a supermarket, to her detriment.

Mr. and Mrs. Swordplay

Mr. and Mrs. Swordplay · 1930

Mr. and Mrs. Swordplay

Silent comedic short by Mikio Naruse

Until Victory Day

Until Victory Day · 1945

Until Victory Day

An Invention laboratory is working on the creation of a performance 'bomb' in the shape of a rocket that could be delivered to the front in order to entertain and amuse the national troops. Inside this rocket would be tiny performers. Once launched from the laboratory and landed amidst the Japanese troops the soldiers could enjoy the performers. The laboratory succeeds and the rocket is built. It bears the insignia, 'until the victory days.' The Japanese government began a program of shooting and disseminating propaganda and entertainment movies for its troops during World War II. Only 15 minutes of the film survives.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs · 1960

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs

Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older.

Two in the Shadow

Two in the Shadow · 1967

Two in the Shadow

MovieRomanceDrama

A man is involved in a fatal car accident, and though he is blameless, his company transfers him to a remote branch in a small town. Before he leaves, he gives the man's widow a large sum of money that she uses to move back to her hometown.

Floating Clouds

Floating Clouds · 1955

Floating Clouds

MovieDramaRomance

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.

Summer Clouds

Summer Clouds · 1958

A war widow with a young boy manages a farm with her bossy mother-in-law. When a reporter comes to interview her, the two begin an affair. He turns out to be married and won't leave his wife. Her older brother tries to marry off his children and hang on to/ extend his farm through an advantageous marriage in the face of threatened land confiscation and the desire of his children to get comfortable urban jobs instead of the backbreaking work in the paddy fields under parental control.

Repast

In post-WWII Osaka, a middle-aged woman is forced to examine her dreary life and marriage when her husband's young and flirtatious cousin arrives for a brief stay to escape an arranged marriage.

Lightning

Lightning · 1952

The story of Kiyoko, a young woman who has successfully managed to make a break with her dysfunctional family who have been trying to arrange a marriage for her with a disagreeable man whom she has rejected.

Daughters, Wives and a Mother

Daughters, Wives and a Mother · 1960

Daughters, Wives and a Mother

Sanae is left a widow after her prestigious husband dies, but holds the proceeds of a million yen insurance policy. Being childless, her former in-laws have no objection to her return to her own family.

Late Chrysanthemums

Late Chrysanthemums · 1954

Late Chrysanthemums

What is the life of a Geisha like once her beauty has faded and she has retired? Kin has saved, and become a wealthy money-lender, spending her days coldly collecting debts. Even her best friends, fellow Geisha Tomi, Nobu, and Tamae, are now indebted to her. For all of them, the glamour of their young lives has passed; Tomi and Tamae have disappointing children. Kin has two former lovers who still pursue her; one she wants to see, and the other she doesn't. But even the one she remembers fondly, when he shows up, proves less than satisfactory.

Flowing

Flowing · 1956

Otsuta is running the geisha house Tsuta in Tokyo. Her business is heavily in debt. Her daughter Katsuyo doesn't see any future in her mother's trade in the late days of geisha. But Otsuta will not give up. This film portrays the day time life of geisha when not entertaining customers.

A Wanderer's Notebook

A Wanderer's Notebook · 1962

A Wanderer's Notebook

Based on the life and career of novelist Fumiko Hayashi, she bitterly struggles for literary recognition in the first half of the 20th-century – her affairs with feckless men, the jobs she took to survive (peddler, waitress, bar maid), and her arduous, often humiliating attempts to get published in a male-dominated culture.

A Woman's Life

A Woman's Life · 1963

A woman remembers her own marriage when dealing with the love life of her son.

Apart from You

Apart from You · 1933

An aging geisha, whose angry teenage son is ashamed of her profession, works alongside a young geisha, resentful of her family for forcing her into a life of ignominy.

A Whistle in My Heart

A Whistle in My Heart · 1959

A Whistle in My Heart

The story is about the social problems faced by Japan's indigenous Ainu, mostly centered on the reactions of the characters to their oppressed state.

More Like This

Blade Runner

Blade Runner · 1982

MovieScience FictionDrama

In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.

The Elementary Particles

The Elementary Particles · 2006

The Elementary Particles

MovieDramaRomance

Based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.

Anatomy of a Murder

Anatomy of a Murder · 1959

Anatomy of a Murder

MovieCrimeDrama

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front · 1930

All Quiet on the Western Front

When a group of idealistic young men join the German Army during the Great War, they are assigned to the Western Front, where their patriotism is destroyed by the harsh realities of combat.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon · 2000

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

MovieAdventureDrama

Two warriors in pursuit of a stolen sword and a notorious fugitive are led to an impetuous, physically-skilled, teenage nobleman's daughter, who is at a crossroads in her life.

A History of Violence

A History of Violence · 2005

A History of Violence

MovieDramaThriller

An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.

Absolute Power

Absolute Power · 1997

MovieCrimeDrama

A master thief coincidentally is robbing a house where a murder—in which the President of the United States is involved—occurs in front of his eyes. He is forced to run, while holding evidence that could convict the President.

Walk the Line

Walk the Line · 2005

MovieDramaMusic

A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash's life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

No End

1982, Poland. A translator loses her husband and becomes a victim of her own sorrow. She looks to sex, to her son, to law, and to hypnotism when she has nothing else in this time of martial law when Solidarity was banned.

Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump · 1994

MovieComedyDrama

A man with a low IQ has accomplished great things in his life and been present during significant historic events—in each case, far exceeding what anyone imagined he could do. But despite all he has achieved, his one true love eludes him.

Metropolis

Metropolis · 1927

MovieDramaScience Fiction

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

12 Mighty Orphans

12 Mighty Orphans · 2021

12 Mighty Orphans

MovieHistoryDrama

Haunted by his mysterious past, a devoted high school football coach leads a scrawny team of orphans to the state championship during the Great Depression and inspires a broken nation along the way.

Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now · 1979

At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter