Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The Deep Blue Sea Review


Rachel Weisz stars in the film adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play The Deep Blue Sea as Lady Hester Collyer, a young woman who leaves her husband for a life with a handsome former RAF pilot embarking on a deluded and destructive relationship that in the end leaves the stunning beauty distraught and alone.

Set in a post-war London in the 1950s, this Terence Davies directed film, The Deep Blue Sea opens with Hester’s closing lines of her attempted suicide. Moving from a dimly lit window pane to a spectacular montage documenting how her passionate affair with war-time hero Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston) began. Only to get slapped back to reality by Hester’s compassionate landlady Mrs. Elton (Ann Mitchell) and by slapped I mean she gets another tenant to slap her. In the face. Rather hard.


Told from Hester’s POV, basically sitting around her shabby love nest in various states of depression and melancholy as her memories are interwoven into the overall story. The Deep Blue Sea accounts Hester’s estrangement from adoring husband William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale) and Hester’s emotional desperation as she clings to her self-involved lover Freddie; A man who loves her, but not enough to stay with her.


‘Between the Devil and The Deep Blue Sea’ is where Hester finds herself. A rock and a hard place if you will. A dead, boring, passionless marriage and an emotionally draining and damaging new relationship. Where a run in front of an ongoing train seems like a suitable option until the men in her life can take no more, leaving Hester slumping to the floor in hysterics before opening the curtains on a new day.

Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz has always been one of my favourites ever since she kicked Anaksunamun’s ass in The Mummy Returns, and her performance here is both moving and touching in all the right moments.

Perhaps the film’s greatest element is Davies’ use of background music with a dramatic score by Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto. Popular music and pub-sing-alongs also feature heavily throughout, providing a cultural and historical feel for the 1950s London. One in particular, Jo Stafford’s You Belong To Me providing an enchanting touch.

More importantly, The Deep Blue Sea certainly serves to capture the theatrical element of Rattigan’s original stage born tale. Although one drawback is that at times it can be a tad difficult to follow what is occurring in real time and what is simply a memory.

The Deep Blue Sea was funded by The UK Film Council and Film4. Rachel Weisz also stars in the new horror flick Dream House alongside Daniel Craig also out in cinemas now. The Deep Blue Sea is available to watch at the Queen’s Film Theatre from December 2 until December 15.

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