Plot summary

A dramatization of the fight by Jewish Maria Altmann née Bloch-Bauer (Dame Helen Mirren), with the help of lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds) to reclaim items stolen from her family in Austria by the Nazis during World War II, including some paintings by Gustav Klimt, most notably one better known as "Woman in Gold" (a painting of Maria's aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer) which has been hanging in the Belvedere Museum in Vienna since the end of the war, and which is considered a national Austrian treasure, is presented. A young Maria (Tatiana Maslany) and her husband Fritz Altmann (Max Irons) were able to escape from what was the total Nazi persecution of the Jewish people in Austria during the war eventually to live in Los Angeles. Maria has been unable to reconcile what happened during the war with being a native Austrian, contempt what she feels for Austria and the Austrian peoples. Maria hired young and relatively inexperienced Randy, the grandson of composer Arnold Schönberg, and the son of a family friend, following the death of her older sister Luise, and discovering amongst her possessions that she was planning on taking some form of legal action with the recently instituted Restitution Committee in Austria. Only now getting back on track with his career after some earlier missteps, Randy takes the case solely for the potential financial gain in light of "Woman in Gold"'s market value. Even then, Randy has to convince his new bosses to allow him to work on this case, which may eventually have high profile, but little chance of success. In Vienna, Maria and Randy find an ally in Viennese investigative journalist Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Brühl), who tells them that the Committee is largely a sham that makes the conditions so prohibitively stringent as for no one being able to succeed. They will also find that the Austrian government generally and the administrators of the Belvedere have no intention of giving up, especially the Klimts, without a fight. Beyond these obstacles, Maria and Randy also have to discover if they do have a legal foot on which to stand regarding whether the paintings rightfully belong to Maria. As Maria and Randy hit one roadblock after another, Randy gains a new appreciation for the case in his affection for Maria and in coming to terms as being a descendant of Holocaust survivors. In Randy discovering alternative legal channels in which to pursue as those at the Belvedere refuse to negotiate, they all know that the Belvedere has one other important factor on their side: that they can drag out whatever legal proceedings as long as need be for elderly Maria to die before any legal decision is made.—Huggo