Aside from the 2008 documentary Of Time and the City, a look at the history and transformation of Liverpool, The Deep Blue Sea is director Terence Davies' first feature film since The House Of Mirth, starring Gillian Anderson in 2000.
Adapted from a play by Terence Rattigan, The Deep Blue Sea tells the story of Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz), the wife of a nice but rather despondent older man William (Simon Russell Beale). Set in 1950, when a post war Britain is struggling to get back to life as it was and a time when Hester find's herself longing for something more. She goes on to discover a sexual awakening after embarking on a love affair with handsome, young RAF pilot Freddie (Tom Hiddleston).
The majority of the film takes place during one day in Hester's flat, a day in which she has decided to commit suicide. Her attempt fails and as she recovers, the story of her affair and her married life is played out in a mosaic of short and sporadic flashbacks. We soon discover the constraints of Hester's comfortable marriage, where she is well looked after, but is expected to act in a way in which most middle class women of that time were meant to act. There is an amusing scene involving the mother in law, which shows the bristly nature of British family relationships, where even the thought of putting milk into a cup first whilst making tea is too controversial for some of the older generation to deal with.
As Hester's affair is discovered she leaves her life of comparative luxury and moves into a small dingy London flat with lover Freddie. But Hester soon realises that unfortunately love is a disappointing and unreliable experience no matter who it's with. The film is named after the dilemma of having to make the choice between two equally undesirable situations. Hester's new younger partner can give her the passion she's always desired, but the emotionally immature Freddie can never give her the love and stability that her husband gave. And a world without passion seems like one that Hester cannot bare to be a part of.
During the film Hester declares her situation as 'sad perhaps, but hardly Sophocles' but The Deep Blue Sea is definitely played out in a Greek Tragedian way. But luckily it manages to find a balance where it can bring us the highly emotional melodrama without making us wallow in it too much. Although the decision to try and kill herself in order to get closer to Freddie seems like a bit of an unstable one, and one that clearly backfires, we then go on to see Hester fight hard to get her emotions under control and accept the fact that she is fighting a losing battle.
Set in a time which is a little alien to most now a days, The Deep Blue Sea manages to get across brilliantly the emotional torture of the reality of love and it's inadequacies, which are felt universally in any period of time. Davies' way of film making might seem a little a little frustrating to some, with it's choppy chronology and the fact that the first fifteen minutes at least, has almost no dialogue, but that's the beauty of his style; the fact that one minute we can be exposed to the most dramatic of soundtracks, with Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto blaring in the background, and then the next minute be left with only the squeak of old wooden floorboards and the ticking of clocks. Then when the dialogue does kick in, it can be so over the top it almost becomes a parody of itself, full of 'Darlings' and talk of 'Old Blighty', it's almost as though we are watching an old British black and white film of the 40's and 50's. But again, that's the charm. You will either enjoy the nostalgic quirks or they will make you cringe.
The set design is also something to mention, the entire film takes place in only a handful of locations but the sets are perfect for the times. Hester's flat is gloomy and tatty but is also rich and characterful. The smokey pub where numerous sing-along moments happen and where Hester and Freddie's relationship plays out, will transport you back to an era that even if you didn't witness, you will feel like you know only too well.
All three of the main actors do a superb job of bringing these characters to life, with each of them having their own emotional journey. It would have been easy for them to have been played very 2D, with Hester being just a spoiled and selfish housewife, Freddie just another immature, irresponsible fool and William a stuffy, repressed old man. But the actors bring so much more, with each of them being mufti-faceted and in the end acting with more dignity than they originally began with.
Although over a decade since his last feature film, Terence Davie's is on top form with a beautiful piece of film-making, truthfully portraying the pain of unequal love.
4 Stars