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Like a lot of people who filed reviews, when I saw this for the first time I had no idea what I was getting into. And it starts sloooooowwwwwlllllyyyy. And darkly. And in a manner that leaves room for confusion. All that said, you'd expect a slamming review. Not so. I couldn't give it five stars simply because of those features that would make it hard for a lot of viewers to get into it. But I gave it four because I watched it all the way through, because it grows in power and it grabs you, and not least because it touched me emotionally in the way that good films will.
The film is simple in concept and quite cliched because it's been done 10 million times in films and theater and books. It's the classic love triangle. Sir William (Simon Russell Beale) loves Hester (Rachel Weisz) who doesn't love him but instead loves dashing Freddie (Tom Huddleston), who enjoys her body but doesn't love her. William is an intelligent, accomplished lawyer and mama's boy who married the well bred and very hot Hester but obviously is not a stud.
Hester, who hates the overbearing mama and lacks any spark at all in her personal relationship with Sir William, falls in love with a flirtatious hot stud fighter pilot Freddie (this is the 1950s in Britain when they were the equivalent of almost forgotten rock stars today). And falls into bed and there are a few nude scenes showing them coiling around each other in bed that explain the immediate physical attraction of both. You can't quite get your head around a mental vision of the older, rotund Sir William doing the nasty with the gorgeous Hester. Which explains why Hester is willing to walk away from a marriage to a man that brought her wealth and security and intellectual companionship for the heady hot love of a younger man.
As has been noted, this is well acted. It's slow and probably a lot -if not a majority of today's viewers will never appreciate that because they'll never stick around long enough to see the performances not enough car crashes or exploding buildings or big guns and with the exception of the one bedroom scenenot nearly enough skin. But it is an actor's movie.
Hester could be offsetting. Gorgeous, hot, with a mouth that begs to be explored and eyes you could fall into. Who could feel sorry for that? But you do. Anybody beyond puberty could understand for force that drives her from her physically unappealing husband for the long, lean, lithe, handsome Freddie. Superficial, sure, and you understand that while sex is a big part of the attraction, it's not nearly the whole answer. There's a line later in the film that explains why she falls so hard for Freddie and it's because in the 1950s, Hester has never been with a man that made her realize what true physical and emotional love feels like. And the emotional flows from the physical.
She loves him. Enough to walk away from a man who loves her, has never done anything to deserve her betrayal, who still loves her and maybe always will. But that doesn't overcome the attraction to Freddie. She loves Freddie enough to want him even though she knows he doesn't love her, to degrade herself by begging him to come home, by fighting for just another few hours even knowing it's all ending.
Sir William is an accomplished, intelligent man who loves a woman who he knows he can never hold, can never satisfy, in the bedroom. All his accomplishments, his power, his wealth, don't matter to a woman obsessed with another man.
And handsome, sexy Freddie is a man lost in yesterday. Like high school athletes whose greatest moments are lived before they turn 20, for Freddie 1940 and the Battle of Britain in which he and other men saved Britain and maybe the world from the Nazi hordes was the high point of his life. Now he's unemployed, hitting the pubs, enjoying a hot married woman who enjoys him and if she could just accept the fact it's a fling he could be satisfied. But she insists on loving him to the point of trying to commit suicide in despair over the fact that he doesn't love her back. That's a lot of pressure on a guy who just wants to forget his life in her arms.
And because we're obsessed with happy endings, this is the ultimate downer of a movie. Movie's aren't supposed to end this way. Not today. That, more than anything else, explains the dated feel of the film. What it is is a tragedy. Where everybody hurts and everybody loses and life just comes along and smacks the hell out of you when you're not expecting it. Which also makes it true to life
All that said, if you've ever loved, deeply, strongly and sadly, this movie will speak to you. Love doesn't always end happily. There are days when I think it almost never does. But I like to think there might be a future for the three hurting people shown in this film. You have to hope so, anyway.
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SPOILERS: For those of us who have ever been in a toxic relationship; this movie will resonate with you. No matter historical timeframe or culture this movie will strike a chord within you and you will completely understand the actions of the main characters. I wanted to hate Freddie, I really did, but I didn't. He never lied to Hester about their relationship. There were no false professions of love and adoration. He didn't ask her to do what she did to be with him. Hester could not handle the overall guilt and shame of being in a relationship with him. Freddie had to leave her to save her. In his own damaged way he showed her he loved her by leaving. I gave this movie 4 stars because like a previous review it was dis-jointed in places. Overall it was very good and the acting was superb. Like I said if you've ever been in a toxic, no win, relationship; this movie will have meaning for you. Oh and unlike a previous review you don't have to be British to understand it.Best Deals for The Deep Blue Sea (2011)
I admit that I fully expected this film to be boring. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find it not only engaging, but the first film I have seen about an adulterous affair that I think actually qualified as a love story. Yes, the film is very slow. But I never found it boring. That is largely due to the powerful performances of the three main actors: Weisz, Hiddleston and Beale. They captivate from the first to the last.The film has an unusual structure that works well for the themes explored. It opens with Hester about to commit suicide, and recalling via flashback what transpired to get her to this point. Like true memories, they don't necessarily come in clearly, or in order, and it can be challenging for a viewer to follow at first. The movie is ostensibly about the affair between Hester and Freddie, but also subtly addresses the mystery of depression to those who have never experienced it, and cannot understand it. Hester's husband loves her; they have money and privilege, yet she is painfully unhappy because they are no more than friends. Along comes Freddie who, after surviving the Battle of Britain, is living life to the fullest with little thought for tomorrow and she falls in love for the first time in her life. But, Freddie is unable to give her everything she needs either. It would have been easy to make Freddie the "villain" here, and I am glad the director did not. Freddie is insensitive and occasionally cruel to Hester. Yet, he never misled her on who he is, or what he could be for her. He is as trapped in his life as she in hers. One scene in the museum shows that she can be cruel to him in turn. Hester is caught between two men: one she cares for, respects and enjoys as an intellectual companion, and one who gives her the passion and joy she has been missing. With such a disastrous set-up, I was somewhat amazed that the film ended with a note of hope.
The film is beautiful to look at visually lush and very appropriate to the time period. And the score fits so perfectly it actually tells the story for long stretches when there is little dialog. This is not an "entertaining" film in the traditional sense, and those looking for escapism will probably be disappointed. Yet, it is a very moving film about love, rebellion, and finding oneself. I enjoyed it immensely and will watch it again.
The extras are also quite good for an indie film. They include an interview with Weisz, and one with Hiddleston. But, the two featurettes were the most interesting. Terence Davies' Master Class, in which he spends about an hour addressing what looks to be an actual class of students, was superb delving into his motivations, the actual process of how he directs, what he felt about certain scenes, and the actors. This would be of particular interest to film students, even if the film is not their cup of tea. The DVD also includes director commentary of the film, but I personally don't like those. Overall, 4.5 stars, and it has encouraged me to look for other films by this director.
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Spoilers below:This film is beautifully shot and staged, and the acting is well done. There, those are my only two positive comments. Now, to my criticisms.
As many others have mentioned, the shrieking, beyond melodramatic violin score through the initial scenes made me feel like I wanted to claw my skin off. Someone needs to instruct director Terence Davies that a film score is supposed to draw the audience IN to the story line, not make them wish to run for the nearest exit. We are introduced to the main character, Hester, as she is attempting suicide with every means at her disposal in her squalid post-war flat. In a mixture of flashbacks and real-time, we are shown the situations that supposedly brought her to this point.
For the sake of (unrequited) love and passion, Hester has thrown over her rich older husband (a judge) for an oily, selfish ex-RAF officer. She and her lover are so immature and dim and self-destructive that I can feel nothing like sympathy for either one of them. Hester apparently longs for the kind of ill-fated, all consuming love she read about as a girl in Wuthering Heights or Abelard & Heloise; but WWII comes along and so she takes safe refuge in a sterile marriage to a well-off old man. He loves her deeply, but she treats him like a favorite uncle. Not surprisingly, she's bored and miserable.
We first meet Freddie, now back a few years from the war. He admits in an early meeting in a pub with Hester that "nothing can compare to surviving the Battle of Britain," so it's clear that his emotional intelligence is frozen at that high-adrenaline moment in time; what sexual relationship is ever going to measure up to that high water mark in a chap's life? While Hester is totally besotted with Freddie, the most romantic thing we ever hear from him is, "I say, you really are the most attractive girl I've met." Finally, in a scene about 1/2 way through the film, we see that the reason Hester tried to off herself in the first scene is because Freddie callously spent the weekend in the country with friends and not only missed her birthday, but forgot it entirely. Missed birthday = dirt nap, at least in Hester's overwrought imagination. Of course, by movie's end, her hysteria has worn out even Freddie's limited intelligence and he leaves her in the lurch (although, to his credit, he finally does show her some modicum of regret).
Some reviewers have mentioned "how romantic" and "how tragic" this story was, and how it brought them to tears. If this is really the depiction of a love story that you can relate to, then I fear for your future happiness. In fact, the only time I personally teared up was when Hester witnesses the elderly landlady tending to her dying husband of many, many years and she lets Hester have it straight: "You don't have any idea what real love is. Real love is wiping someone's ass, or changing the sheets on the bed because he wets them; it's being there and letting them keep their dignity." For me, that was the high point of the film.
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