The Deep Blue Sea [2011], DVD
William loves Hester, but although they meet intellectually and socially, he is too old and too staid for her. Hester loves Freddie, but although they meet physically, she is too old and too needy for him. As things stand, all three characters in this love triangle are miserable, and one feels some sympathy for them. William is hurt. Hester wants more from Freddie than he can give. Freddie has struggled since the end of the war to find his place in civilian life, drinks too much because his life is now without purpose, and resents Hester for her dependancy upon him. William still loves Hester enough to ask her to come back, but Hester has tasted the full flavour of mature forbidden fruit and cannot return to entombment once more in a marriage without passion.
Caught betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea, fearing the future when Freddie will almost certainly abandon her, Hester can either kill herself now or choose to find a new way to live as a single woman without status. Ironically in attempting the former she breaks the status quo, precipitating the thing that she dreads most - Freddie’s departure. And yet, having failed to die, she finds the strength to let Freddie go, facing up to the uncertainty of life alone. (Although played by Rachel Weisz one can't imagine her being alone for very long.)
So that’s the plot. It’s all about sex, love and unequal relationships, and in principal the film is true to the original Terrence Rattigan play, except that it is simplified and told in the form of snippets of memory flashbacks from Hester’s viewpoint. The landscape is a dowdy flat in a shabby London street complete with bomb damage. The soundscape, though sparse, shifts from classical Barber violin concerto to nostalgic wartime sing-along. The overall effect is a dreamlike quality as we are drawn in and out of sharp focus through Hester’s memory and experience. The director Terrence Davis was not known to me. He is not prolific, but I know that he has a certain styles that people either love or hate, several of which are clearly employed in The Deep Blue Sea, such as symmetry of composition (we start and end with the gas fire, the flat window, the front of the house, the street), portrayal of memories and storytelling through flashbacks, and use of song. Davies is old enough to have his own memories the look and feel of the 1950s, which he describes as being rather shabby, muted and achromatic. An era when one was expected to shut up and put up with one's lot.
One certainly feels the stifling stuffy nature of Judge and Lady Collyer’s marriage. Simon Russell-Beale plays a sympathetic older husband as the part demands, but clearly even if Hester had known the Judge as a younger man, he hardly seems the type to have ever inspired passion. Dashing Freddie, despite his defects, is a young man his physical prime, and Hester is drawn to him with such strongly awakened desire that she can hardly keep her hands off him even after months of their ongoing affair.
At first I thought Racheal Weisz was simply too beautiful and youthful in appearance to be convincing as either the Judge’s wife, or the older woman to Tom Hiddleston as Freddie. But I quickly changed my mind. Her performance is entirely convincing - veering between restrained respectability and besotted dependence with conflicted maturity versus destructive desperation.
Repression. Forbidden love. Love inexplicable in terms of logic. Falling for the wrong sort. Of course Terence Rattigan would have preferred to write the story about three men in a love triangle. Propriety and the law would not permit such a play in the 1950s, however this informative review starts by touching upon the incident that sparked the idea http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/8896157/On-the-set-of-The-Deep-Blue-Sea.html
It’s a sad story in most aspects, but actually the final message is a hopeful one. Better to be true to your own nature. Better to have loved and lost. Better to live in the hope that another chance to love will come your way. The three central characters may not have found happiness and equality in love in relation to each other, but there are background examples of successful partnerships - the landlady and her sick husband, Freddie’s friend and his girl. In this respect, and in the generally sympathetic portrayal of the central three, I found the film much less depressing than the BBC drama version which I reviewed previously, in which all characters seemed doomed to despair.
Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with? Desperate, self-destructive one-sided love, lost forever when the recipient of said desire left the country? Been there. Did that. Got the T-shirt - in a very small size because of all the pining involved over a prolonged period during the mid-to-late 80s. Got real. Moved on. Met Mr T and the rest is a horrible history. Still, for the sake of nostalgia, send me a nice young man to slow dance with! Ah, memories should all be like this...
Apologies for abrupt ending to dreamy clip. Apparently that's all the fantasy allowed for one day. :-))
Caught betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea, fearing the future when Freddie will almost certainly abandon her, Hester can either kill herself now or choose to find a new way to live as a single woman without status. Ironically in attempting the former she breaks the status quo, precipitating the thing that she dreads most - Freddie’s departure. And yet, having failed to die, she finds the strength to let Freddie go, facing up to the uncertainty of life alone. (Although played by Rachel Weisz one can't imagine her being alone for very long.)
So that’s the plot. It’s all about sex, love and unequal relationships, and in principal the film is true to the original Terrence Rattigan play, except that it is simplified and told in the form of snippets of memory flashbacks from Hester’s viewpoint. The landscape is a dowdy flat in a shabby London street complete with bomb damage. The soundscape, though sparse, shifts from classical Barber violin concerto to nostalgic wartime sing-along. The overall effect is a dreamlike quality as we are drawn in and out of sharp focus through Hester’s memory and experience. The director Terrence Davis was not known to me. He is not prolific, but I know that he has a certain styles that people either love or hate, several of which are clearly employed in The Deep Blue Sea, such as symmetry of composition (we start and end with the gas fire, the flat window, the front of the house, the street), portrayal of memories and storytelling through flashbacks, and use of song. Davies is old enough to have his own memories the look and feel of the 1950s, which he describes as being rather shabby, muted and achromatic. An era when one was expected to shut up and put up with one's lot.
One certainly feels the stifling stuffy nature of Judge and Lady Collyer’s marriage. Simon Russell-Beale plays a sympathetic older husband as the part demands, but clearly even if Hester had known the Judge as a younger man, he hardly seems the type to have ever inspired passion. Dashing Freddie, despite his defects, is a young man his physical prime, and Hester is drawn to him with such strongly awakened desire that she can hardly keep her hands off him even after months of their ongoing affair.
At first I thought Racheal Weisz was simply too beautiful and youthful in appearance to be convincing as either the Judge’s wife, or the older woman to Tom Hiddleston as Freddie. But I quickly changed my mind. Her performance is entirely convincing - veering between restrained respectability and besotted dependence with conflicted maturity versus destructive desperation.
Repression. Forbidden love. Love inexplicable in terms of logic. Falling for the wrong sort. Of course Terence Rattigan would have preferred to write the story about three men in a love triangle. Propriety and the law would not permit such a play in the 1950s, however this informative review starts by touching upon the incident that sparked the idea http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/8896157/On-the-set-of-The-Deep-Blue-Sea.html
It’s a sad story in most aspects, but actually the final message is a hopeful one. Better to be true to your own nature. Better to have loved and lost. Better to live in the hope that another chance to love will come your way. The three central characters may not have found happiness and equality in love in relation to each other, but there are background examples of successful partnerships - the landlady and her sick husband, Freddie’s friend and his girl. In this respect, and in the generally sympathetic portrayal of the central three, I found the film much less depressing than the BBC drama version which I reviewed previously, in which all characters seemed doomed to despair.
Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with? Desperate, self-destructive one-sided love, lost forever when the recipient of said desire left the country? Been there. Did that. Got the T-shirt - in a very small size because of all the pining involved over a prolonged period during the mid-to-late 80s. Got real. Moved on. Met Mr T and the rest is a horrible history. Still, for the sake of nostalgia, send me a nice young man to slow dance with! Ah, memories should all be like this...
Click to viewApologies for abrupt ending to dreamy clip. Apparently that's all the fantasy allowed for one day. :-))