The Deep Blue Sea

Terence Davies is a filmmaker with a wonderfully unique, eloquent and quintessentially British voice. He reflects with elegance and poise about memory and loss of things past, capturing these ideas perfectly in dramas like the exquisite Distant Voices, Still Lives or just as well in his brilliant documentary Of Time and the City. What marks his new film apart from his previous work however is that he’s adapted it from another source, Terrence Rattigan’s play of the same name, leaving us to wonder whether his voice can survive the process of transition.

The central story is on the surface quite simplistic: a passionate woman (Rachel Weisz) leaves her dull but highly respectable husband (Simon Russell Beale) after falling in love with a far more exciting man (Tom Hiddleston) in the years just after the war. This context is key, as its ideas of shame, regret and the troublesome nature of getting a divorce (or indeed of a woman’s place in respectable society) that it examines are those of the time and not of today. Sixty years later divorces are generally accepted as an unfortunate fact of life and woman’s social position has vastly improved, thereby perhaps making the film seem a little alien to the modern audience. Thankfully the film deals with this well by creating a truly phenomenal sense of atmosphere, place and period, through a mixture of costume, set design, a wonderful selection of contemporary music and of course the director's eye for the tell-tale signs of a bygone age. The audience is thus drawn inextricably into its beautiful and sumptuous vision of the past. So that, though the issues may not be those of the present, the story and ideas of the piece still seem incredibly vibrant.

To tell stories well casts need to be good, and here they are absolutely wonderful. Simon Russell Beale gives a touching performance as a well mannered respectable man trying to hide his hurt and pain behind a veneer of civility. Likewise, Tom Hiddleston proves beyond a shadow of a doubt he is capable of far more than a simple villain in Marvel blockbusters. And crucially Rachel Weisz is simply a joy to watch, with her Hester being so full of emotion and a strange sense of warmth that you can never doubt her. She simply blows you away, and since she is in every scene there is always something wondrous to watch. It is also through her character's dragging up of old memories that we see much of the film develop, allowing us connect even more with her regrets, sadness and suffering. Yet perhaps most importantly, this makes the whole thing feel incredibly cinematic and allows Davies's wonderful voice to flow uninhibited throughout the piece, making it feel strangely poetic.

The Deep Blue Sea is not perfect and the fact it deals with past rather than present ideas may alienate some. Yet if you can get past this, there is a sumptuous and beautiful film underneath, filled to the brim with poignancy and deep emotion that is simply wonderful.

See The Deep Blue Sea at York City Screen. Click here for more information [1]

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