User Reviews

The main flaw with this film is the score. The entire score seems wholly misplaced against the backdrop of the story. The entire collection of violins drown the dialogue and plot in trills and crescendos, without any consequence, and leaves a bitter taste, from the start, and little hope that something impressive is going to unfold.

Having said that, Rachel Weisz as Hester Collyer was sublime. Her portray was forceful, promising and deeply crafted. Her rough emotional distance and tentative passion lends a more natural edge to an other gloomy film. It is tragic when a film, with as much potential as this one, relies so heavily on one of two characters to keep it afloat. The rest of the cast, do not deserve any special mention. They are merely stilted orbs, lacking any remarkable features, revolving around the maelstrom that is Hester Collyer.

The cinematography also deserved a special note. Intimate shots swathed in 1950's British charm holds this film in a state of timelessness. The cinematography also mixes well with Rachel Weisz's role - her melancholia so closely studied by Terence Davies, that rushes in and ebbs as quickly, is deepened and darkened by the lifeless rooms and hopeless situations she finds herself in.

Overall this is a movie that one needs to see for oneself; in order to formulate your own opinion about it, independently and isolation.

A story we have seen many times before - woman destroyed by love - but one with which the director of The House of Mirth both has a particular affinity and invests with that dreamlike, almost somnambulist, melancholy and clear-eyed, even-handed candour in his representations of the key players: desperate romantic wife, wronged but dignified husband, selfish but droll lover, stern yet empathetic landlady. As a result the familiar turns of the narrative matter less than the exquisitely observed pathos of their enaction. Davies messes with chronology, too, so that we begin at story's end and are never sure how close together the two suicide attempts come. The final shot is a chilling pan onto a burnt-out shell of a house, at once proleptic and symbolic of the protagonist's utter desolation, like something from a David Lynch movie.

Terence Davies rewrote some of "The Deep Blue Sea" for this film adaptation, released in 2011 and starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston.

Set in the 1950s, Weisz plays Hester, a young woman married to an older man (Simon Russell Beale). In the beginning of the film, we see her attempt suicide, and then we see what led up to it and beyond.

We don't know much about her relationship with her husband. She seems fond of him, but not in love, and it's not clear why they married. In this film, he has a perfectly awful mother (Barbara Jefford) - she's not in the play, as I recall.

Hester meets a returning air force pilot, Freddie Page (Hiddleston), and the two fall in love, or seem to -- clearly, like Anna Karenina, the physical side of the relationship is something all-encompassing and new to her, and she revels in it. She becomes obsessed with him and ultimately leaves her heartbroken husband, who refuses to give her a divorce. She moves in with her lover.

It turns out the object of her affection is very self-involved, very shallow, and very restless for the good old days, loving to spend time in the pub with his cronies singing. "His favorite year is 1940," she tells her husband. He can't love her the way she needs to have him love her. "I can't be Romeo all the time!" he screams at his friend. Her suicide attempt is the last straw. He can't stay with her.

This film has the look of the '50s, with his deep colors, and the hairstyles and clothing and mores are perfect. This is England after the war, trying to find its place in an altered world, like Freddie, who thinks being a test pilot in South America is just the ticket.

I saw Rachel Weisz recently on stage with her husband Daniel Craig in Betrayal. The play was badly directed but I loved both of them. Weisz is so stunning in person -- absolutely gorgeous. Here she gives such a beautiful, gut-wrenching performance as a woman who can't live without passion. Hiddleston is excellent as a charming, upbeat man who doesn't delve deeply into things and when the going gets tough, runs out the door to the pub. He embodies this perfectly. Simon Russell Beale is a brilliant actor. Here it's obvious his character cares so much for Hester that he feels her pain and in the end, just wants her to be happy. But it's too late for that.

The last scene is shattering -- Hester, desolate, looks out her window and sees life going on -- people on their way to work, children playing, people beginning their day...and the camera stops at a bombed out shell and stays there.

Sounds like I loved it. I loved the emotion in it. I loved the acting. I actually wasn't crazy about the movie. First of all, I don't really understand the necessity of rewriting Terrence Rattigan. Seems a little presumptuous to me. Also, the filmed moved very slowly. Too slowly and seemed too long. Of course that could have been avoided if Davies hadn't added material.

Because this is based on a play, the film has a theatricality about it, but Davies has opened it up. Definitely worth seeing for the acting.

It has been a while since I last saw a decent period piece so for that, I give this film due kudos. In the age of over-the-top special effects and studio favoured blockbusters a well made drama is hard to come by.

Hester (played by the ever astonishingly talented Rachel Weisz) is married to a stoic and brutally honest judge named William and though it is not entirely clear when their marriage went sour, Hester embarks on a torrid relationship with William's friend Freddie, a military man who has just returned from war. Somewhere along the line, Hester begins to realise that she might have very hopped from the frying pan into the fire by putting her secure marriage to her elderly hubby in jeopardy by having an affair with an incredibly childish man. That dilemma is where the film gets its title 'The Deep Blue Sea' from the saying "Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea".

Things I liked, the dewy camera view, the theatre-like dialogue delivery and stage-like performances by the actors. The land lady was a real scene-stealer. Things I did not like, the slow pace of the film and the polarising script. The first ten minutes of the film told a harrowing story highlighting infidelity without any words just set to music but sadly the rest of the film is spent trying to reflect on the brilliance of those first ten minutes.

The Oscar curse has not affected Weisz one bit, she has been a revelation with each new film she has done since winning an Academy Award for her role in 'The Constant Gardener' an equally brilliant film.

I entered this film with high expectations and was sorely disappointed, and for someone who usually enjoys period films with strong character development, that's saying something. Everything I needed to know about the character(s) was revealed in the slow spiraling first ten minutes of the movie during which I was already looking at my watch and waiting for the pace of the film to pick up. It never did.

Here is the story: bored, well-to-do housewife, has left boring, and sadly loyal husband with a difficult mother for shallow, self-consumed air force pilot only to find that the relationship doesn't work. We don't know exactly why. He is certainly damaged by the war and hates his current mundane life, and it's hinted that he's not smart enough for her, though for some inconceivable reason she can't seem to break her infatuation with him. She hates her life and herself, so rather than spending it sitting in a dark flat staring at the walls and hoping for lung cancer to set in, she decides to kill herself. This is where the audience comes into the film.

Unfortunately for the us, she fails, so we are forced to endure watching the remaining 90 minutes of the film in small, yet amazingly interminable snippets of her life, any of which, if developed at all, had the potential to be interesting. By the last 20 minutes, it was a toss up which of us, her or me, would survive to see the light of day.

This film may appeal to those who are familiar with the era and would appreciate the imagery, soundtrack, and emotional layers depicted in the film. Others will find it quite dull and depressing. Rachel Weisz plays Lady Hester whose soul can be felt screaming under her forced composure. Married to Sir William Collyer, a British judge played by Simon Russell Beale, she appears to find her life, based on etiquette and social acceptance unbearable. Deciding that it is better to live a life of passion, than one of controlled feelings and monotony that weigh her soul daily, she proceeds to have an affair with an ex-Royal Air Force pilot by the name of Freddie played by Tom Hiddleston. The contrast between her composed husband and Freddie who appears infantile, irresponsible and completely selfish is extreme. There is no explanation for why she is childless, although William asks her whether it would have made any difference to her lack of happiness had they had a child. There are many unanswered questions, the most intriguing one being; Which is more unbearable – to live a life feeling nothing, or to experience the exhilaration of love, then suffer the depths of pain caused by the lover who steals your dignity? Ironically, Hester's landlady who is caring for her elderly father tells her that real love is changing the soiled underwear of someone who is helpless and still allowing them to keep their dignity. Love is about putting the other person's feelings above your own; something that Hester's lover refuses to do. William, deeply hurt by the affair states that he never wants to see Hester again. However ten months later when he hears about Hester's attempted suicide, immediately comes to her aid showing her that his deep love for her remains.

Having felt nothing for most of her life, Hester's passionate affair becomes so overwhelming that she spends the majority of her time constantly trying to balance her feelings. When she feels nothing it scares her so she acts in irrational ways, running into the subway just as a speeding train blasts past her. Then when she feels too much and cannot cope with the pain, she attempts suicide. She allows herself to be publicly humiliated by her lover, because it feels better than being ignored.

For the viewer, her roller coaster ride plays in slow motion and in some parts becomes mind-numbingly slow. The flashbacks and imagery are confusing; an example being when Hester runs into the subway. The tension is broken by strange dream-like imagery of a crowd of people laying about the subway, which makes little sense.

The film may have been set in the 1950s but there's no excuse for the simulation of cataracts that made the entire film annoyingly blurry. To add to the dullness, it was set in wintery doom and gloom. The streets still in disarray from the Blitz are as lifeless as the characters. Terence Davies lacks creativity when the best he can do is devoid the film of colour, including having everyone dressed in the same drab garb except for Hester who gets to wear the scarlet coat.

The credits are rolling; a clock is ticking; a woman's voice is heard, upper-middle class, declaring that, this time, she really is going to die. And so the music begins—the second movement of Samuel Barber's richly romantic violin concerto. The camera pans left and tracks backwards from a dark, difficult-to-make-out street scene. Then, slowly, magically, it begins to glide up, up, up the façade of an utterly typical London terrace house, as the music continues to swell. Finally, as the music reaches its first crescendo, and the camera comes to a halt, we see the haunted face of Rachel Weisz at the top window. And then we dissolve into the past: a man (Simon Russell Beale—Lord William Collyer), and a woman (Rachel Weisz—Hester, his wife) sit opposite each other, in silence. He smiles, gently; she returns his smile. The music is uncertain, fragile. The violins are poised as if in anticipation. Her eyes are starting to fill. And then the haunting melody begins—and just as it begins the tears start to fall down her face. If there has been a more perfect union of music and image in the history of cinema, I have never seen it. The simplicity and beauty of the moment is quite breathtaking.

We see further scenes, culminating in a quite remarkably tender and intimate love scene (which features the really quite glorious spectacle of a liberated and libidinous Hester licking Freddie's back). The camera circles; the effect is at once romantic and vaguely sickening. The music draws to a close. Hester is on the floor—is she dead? Voices are heard, distorted, almost ghost-like. And then—SLAP! Hester is violently jolted back to the reality she now has to face.

So ends the overture to Terence Davies's latest film, an adaptation of Terrence Rattigan's play "The Deep Blue Sea". It is a glorious, singular opening, which matches practically nothing in cinema, and certainly nothing in Rattigan. His play takes place in one room on one day. Davies shatters these classical unities into shards of memory, which the viewer must piece together into new wholes—just as Hester must go in search of her lost time, to gain some sort of control over her own troubled consciousness. How did she get here? Why did she try to commit suicide? *Did* she try to commit suicide? Is it because her lover no longer loves her? Is her primary motivation love, or shame, or something else? A series of flashbacks provide us with clues, but of course no answers. Davies is not only a master at relating music and image—his opening overture is perhaps the best opening to a film I've ever seen. He is also wonderfully alive to the deep indeterminacy of human motive, a theme which he left relatively unexplored in his early autobiographical memory pieces, but which seems increasingly to be the red thread uniting his later adaptations. Of course, we are not simply a mystery to ourselves. But aspects of our mental lives will remain forever dark to us. And, because we are inside Hester's consciousness throughout, we see that, although her behaviour is hardly inexplicable, aspects of her mental life will remain forever dark to her as well.

We *see*—centrally, we see how Hester feels; but we do not always feel how Hester feels. At the end of the film's brilliantly acted closing scene, she is heartbroken. We can see this; but what I felt is a kind of relief, at Hester's becoming freed from an impossible, stifling situation. I think this is deliberate. Barber's music is gushingly romantic, and it could easily be used, by a lesser director, to create cheap emotional effects. But this is not how Davies uses it. It is the music of her love affair with Freddie. And the film is not—in its "real time" sequences—about her love affair with Freddie. It's about the end of the affair. That is why we hear the music during the overture—which is about her affair—but hardly at all during the rest of the film. The romance in the music is a kind of lie. That is what Hester must come to terms with. The snatches of music we hear later are the final flickering of a dying ember, reminding Hester of what she (and we) must move beyond. Barber's romanticism gives way to something more prosaic, less elevated, and more world-weary: Eddie Fisher singing "Any Time".

This is a film of real riches. The shot composition alone makes it something to treasure. It's also a vast improvement on Rattigan's somewhat unfocused play, which Davies adapts, not as Rattigan himself did in the earlier film version, by trying to "open it out" (by including scenes of Freddie and Hester on a skiing holiday—rather as 1970s British sitcoms were "opened out" for their film versions by sending the cast away on holiday), but by homing in on its central relationships, and breaking it up in the way I have described. I am not sure it is a flawless film. Collyer's mother (Barbara Jefford) seems to be too much of a caricature to perform the function which Davies seems to intend for her—to represent one manifestation of the repressive social values which Hester is up against. But this remains a film of deep intelligence and real grace—qualities which its central performances also possess. And here special mention must be made of Rachel Weisz, who gives a really wonderful, sympathetic, and utterly authentic performance. Authenticity permeates the film as a whole. This is not a smirking, ironic vision of the 1950s, intended primarily to comfort us on how far we've come; it *is* the 1950s, as Davies remembers it, with all its starchiness and stiffness—and that is likely to be somewhat challenging and somewhat alienating for the modern viewer. But audiences who are prepared to meet that challenge will be richly rewarded by this lovely, unique, masterful film.

It is tempting to describe The Deep Blue See as one of those examples of typical British understated cinema and superb acting. In a way, it is. But it just doesn't work out very well in this particular film.

It's about a woman with a husband she doesn't love and a lover who doesn't care about her. The husband finds out about the lover, and the lover finds out about her dramatic suicide attempt the film starts with. As if all this isn't tragic enough, the film is set in postwar England, a narrow-minded society of almost claustrophobic proportions.

The result is a film so heavy it almost gets crushed under its own weight. Long shots, silence-filled conversations, tormented looks, outbursts of anger. The first minutes are filled with seemingly unconnected images of the woman in various situations, accompanied by dramatic classical music. Not really a nice appetizer for what's to follow. I had trouble keeping my eyes open during the many scenes in which nothing really happens. One wants to shout out: 'Come on, let's get on with it!'.

It's a pity really, because it's clear this film is made with the best of intentions. It's meant to be a counterweight to the commercial junk from Hollywood. It's about vulnerable people with real emotions, as opposed to cardboard characters shooting and killing each other. But in its efforts to be serious, intellectual, and high-brow, it has almost become a parody of itself.

This movie starts brilliantly. Director Terence Davies creates a scene centred around a suicide attempt that is quite beautiful and frightening. It really gets the movie going and gets you interested in the story.

Rachael Weisz puts in an accomplished performance as the female protagonist at the centre of a love triangle. She is exceptional throughout and well supported by Simon Russell Beale and Tom Hiddleston.

So why didn't I like this movie more? Well, I think the answer lies in the fact that this movie is based on a play, and it shows. The scenes are long, heavy on dialogue, and not much is done with the screenplay to add something extra.

I think this would be wonderful to see in a crowded theatre where the dramatic tension could build up with the audience in close proximity to the actors. But on a small screen, it just doesn't work as well. Eventually, it becomes boring. And the oddest thing about it is why, after the fantastic opening, Davies doesn't make more use of cinematic techniques to turn this into a "movie." He obviously had the ability, so why didn't he use it? A shame.

Terence Davies is the darling of the BFI where the pseuds who run the place orgasm and genuflect in that order each time his name is mentioned and even as I write are probably planning deification any time soon. The problem with this is that now Davies thinks he is a better writer than Terence Rattigan whereas he isn't fit to change Rattigan's typewriter ribbon. If there was one thing Rattigan could do in his sleep it was CONSTRUCT a play, apparently Davies thinks he can construct a film. In your dreams, mate. With gorgeous conceit Davies is on record as saying that Rattigan didn't devote sufficient time to Hester in Act I of his play so Davies has put that right by dreaming up a lengthy sequence involving Hester's marriage to William Collier and introducing an entire scene involving Collier's mother, and other scenes showing Hester and Freddy Paige getting together. Stuff that Rattigan was able to do more than adequately via a combination of stagecraft and dialogue. He has also seen fit to eliminate the young married couple who find Hester in the play and far from the gas meter running out he has her feed it with several coins before attempting suicide. This is all accompanied by loud, agonisingly tortuous music reminiscent of one of Wagner's worst excesses and if that weren't enough he throws in several pop songs of the time - You Belong To Me, Autumn Leaves and, in another totally extraneous scene set in a tube station during the blitz, Molly Malone. His amateurishness shows up in a pub scene in which the patrons are singing at the tops of their voices, Freddy and Hester step outside, meters from the pub and suddenly it's silent as the grave. It's one thing to tamper with a work that no one alive remembers seeing on its first production - Oscar Wilde say, but The Deep Blue Sea is revived as often as Private Lives both on stage and television and there can't be anyone with an interest in theatre who has not seen it in one production or another - all presented as Rattigan wrote it - within say, the lest six or seven years so there is no excuse, other than massive ego, for this travesty. Throw in the fact that the actor playing Freddie lacks even a smidgin of the breeziness that Kenneth More brought to the role and much more anger. David Mamet, a far superior writer than Davies, is also an admirer of Rattigan and he chose to direct a film adaptation of Rattigan's The Winslow Boy a few years ago, direct it, yes, not rewrite it. Someone at the BFI should remind Davies that the only thing he has in common with Rattigan is a Christian name and homosexuality.

As well made as I found "The Deep Blue Sea," I'm amazed that it took ninety-four minutes to say what could easily have been said in as little as fifteen or twenty. Adapted from the stage play by Terence Rattigan, it tells the incredibly simple story of a woman who leaves behind a secure but sexless marriage for a passionate but reckless affair. With neither relationship able to give her all of what she wants, she must make a choice between going on living or dying alone. Plot wise, there really is nothing more to the film than that. I have not seen or read the original play, although on the basis of what I've read about it, it seems like one of the characters, an ex-doctor, had a much more prominent role than he had in the film. I can't help but wonder if his inclusion would have made the story seem more substantive and less dragged out.

Taking place in London just after World War II (an opening title card gives us the vague timeline of "around 1950"), the central character is a woman named Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz), whose story is told as a combination of flashback sequences and present moments, the latter of which unfold over the course of roughly one day. At the start, she attempts suicide by downing several aspirins and letting her apartment flood with gas fumes from the furnace. She's rescued in time. Left alone to reflect, we get glimpses of the events leading up to her attempt. She was married to an older, well-respected High Court judge named William (Simon Russell Beale). Despite his wealth, his status, and his highly proper behavior, Hester fell out of love with him for his lack of infatuation.

She soon begins an affair with a seemingly high-spirited former RAF pilot named Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston). At last, she finds the physical passion she so desired. William soon catches on, and although he never raises his voice or his hand to her, he decrees that he will never grant her a divorce. Hester moves into Freddie's inner city apartment, which is an obvious step down from the upscale luxury of William's estate. What started off so well between Hester and Freddie soon begins to decline. Despite the physical attention he gives her, it doesn't seem he's capable of financial or emotional stability. He forgets important events, like Hester's birthday. He isn't as cultured as she is, a fact she finds bothersome. It also seems he hasn't been truly happy since the war ended, and so he drinks in excess.

William will reappear several times throughout the film. After the initial shock of learning of her affair, he finds he's much more willing to give her the divorce she wants. All the same, he's genuinely baffled by her rejection of him. Perhaps he wasn't as physically inclined as Freddie, but did feel genuine affection for Hester. He still does. Why is this not enough for her? She tries to explain it to him, although it comes off as little more than excuse-making – which is to say, she makes everything sound much more complicated than it actually is. This isn't to say that emotions aren't complicated, because they very much are, especially in matters of love. However, every conversation she has with William is an exercise in padded dialogue. If she would just trim away the fat and make her point, things would go much more smoothly.

Despite her verbal predilections, the film does feature some exquisitely written passages. The best are reserved for two scenes between Hester and William's puritanical mother (Barbara Jefford). I will not quote any specific lines for want of you hearing them firsthand. Just know this: Mrs. Collyer repeatedly makes it clear, in her own prim and proper way, that Hester does absolutely nothing right and is not good enough for her son. There's also one great scene with the ex-doctor, whose name escapes me at the moment; when he checks on Hester after her suicide attempt, he delivers to William a zinger so deliciously witty that he could have easily been quoting Oscar Wilde.

Perhaps it's because of the story's innate simplicity that it speaks so fluently in the language of melodrama. One of the most noticeable elements is Samuel Barber's "Violin Concerto, Op. 14" (the film does not contain original score material). Here is a piece of music that oozes solemnity from every pore, sounding more like tonal weeping than like an orchestral piece. Long, slow solo sections are played vibrato at the high end of the scale; they're so strategically placed that they're obviously intended to represent Hester's emotional state. There's no rule stating that movies like "The Deep Blue Sea" need to be complicated or multilayered in order to work. All the same, filmmakers should give you more of a reason to see something apart from an easily understood relationship problem.

-- Chris Pandolfi (www.atatheaternearyou.net)

I'm sorry to pop the balloon of all the reviewers who thought this film was great. It was poor. Rachel Weisz (whom I normally like) was wooden and hammy - which was probably a reflection on the director rather than the actor. Converting a play to a film is tough. Carnage just about managed it - but this does not. The audience really never gets to understand the reasons for the affair or why Hester did not return to her husband. There is no 'electricity' in the relationship between her and Freddie.

The story was - well - not a story really. I was bored after the first 10 minutes and only kept watching as I thought it must get better. It didn't.

I was thoroughly disappointed.

Directed by Terence Davies, "The Deep Blue Sea" never quite grabbed me during it's runtime. In fact, I fell asleep during a few scenes and had to re-watch. It's not really a bad movie per say, but it feels too plodding and pedestrian. Non of the actors performances were bad, especially Rachel Weisz, but the texturing and fuzziness of the memory sequences were distracting. Director Davies has put together a movie that in facts feels much more like theatre or a play. (spoilers) Certainly best about it, is the frictional break-up and awkwardness of saying good-bye which helps with the conclusion, but there's something artificial and sort of stuffy along the way.