The Deep Blue Sea

Plot synopsis:
In 1950, Hester Collyer, the younger wife of High Court judge Sir William Collyer, has embarked on a passionate affair with Freddie Page, a handsome young former RAF pilot troubled by his memories of the Second World War. Freddie throws Hester's life in turmoil, as their erotic relationship leaves her emotionally stranded and physically isolated. For Freddie, that tumultuous mix of fear and excitement that was once in his life seems to be no longer present.
The majority of the film takes place during one day in Hester's flat, a day on 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, which is affectionate but without sexual passion.
As Hester's affair is discovered she leaves her life of comparative luxury and moves into a small dingy London flat with Freddie. Hester's new lover has awakened her sexuality, but the reckless, thrill-seeking Freddie can never give her the love and stability that her husband gave her. Yet to return to a life without passion would be unbearable. The film takes its title from her dilemma of being caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea – two equally undesirable situations.

Tags: dramatic, suicidal, flashback

Review:
Thus, Hester (played by a wonderful Rachel Weisz) can fascinate those of us who care about the inner working and emotional vicissitudes of a self destructive woman and who will learn about the human condition by considering her behavior.
In this film, she gives in my opinion the best female acting performance in the last few years, giving a complex and rich performance with a character that could have easily been botch by even a great actress, especially with a screenplay that is more into itself than the audience watching the movie.
Masterfully told, with fantastic acting from Rachel Weisz, the film tells the story of Hester and ill-fated love affair with Freddie Page.
After an overly slow beginning, the director paces his film quite well using sounds, silences, and pauses in the characters' reactions to their conversations most effectively in telling his tale of a love undone.The film sporadically uses these moments to tell the story of the makings of a passionate love affair, but its fragmented structure never allows us to understand Hester's attraction and her rationale to her self-proclaimed changes in her life.
The Deep Blue Sea is a dramatic romance which takes place around the post-war (WWII) period where the young wife of a British judge starts having a love affair with a royal air force pilot.
Rachel Weisz is mature and amazing as a leading actress, and then comes Tom Hiddleston who unveils a beautiful supporting performance and freshens up a little bit the foggy mood of the film.Terence meets Terence and a wonderful theatrical film comes to life.
'THE DEEP BLUE SEA': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five) Rachel Weisz has received much critical praise and award recognition (including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress) for her starring turn in this melodramatic romance based on the 1950's play, of the same name, by Terence Rattigan.
We find this out in flashbacks from a day that begins with Hester attempting suicide in the down-at-heel digs she shares with Freddie.Lush photography and emotive thesping from Rachel Weisz can't save this film from a glaring hole in the narrative - Hester's all-consuming passion for Freddie is impossible to understand.
The meat of the tale of this affair has been skipped over.The music is almost hysterical in its attempt to manipulate the audience, and William's mother is brought on as a one-note character to ram home the fact that Hester is suffocating - as if one look at William wouldn't tell us that already.I came to this film without any knowledge of the Terrence Rattigan play.
Unless, of course, you feel like wallowing in depressing celluloid for two hours.I am all for a bit of melancholy and darkness in an art film but insist that it is balanced out with an interesting story, memorable scenes and zest.
It was as if we were missing an entire chunk of plot to explain why this all happened - actually, what all happened?Yet despite all of this, with what little she was given to work with, Rachel Weisz did make me understand her character, the importance of appearances and the stiff upper lip, the unexpectedness of the mid-life blooming of her teenage passions and the coming to terms with all of this stuff that is not in the sonnets or old masters that she was brought up with...It is not just a case of subtle undercurrents in a restrained British film being missed by an American audience - those moments really are not there.
"Love, that's all." (Hester responds to her husband when he asks her what happened.)No film in recent memory is as depressing as The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Davies' adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play.
In either venue, the story of Lady Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) and her infidelity will sear your brain in recognition of the perfect storm of love and lust sung to the tune of 1950's conservatism, which largely meant staying with a spouse regardless if it's a loveless marriage.Freddie (Tom Hiddleston), a WWII Brit flyboy, hasn't graduated yet from the romance of that war to the responsibilities of true love in civilian life.
Hester unfortunately is ripe for romance with him as her older husband, a high court judge and a peer, is caring but far too reserved to provide a tender woman with the love she needs.This is a simple film of measured speech in the tradition of West End thespian greatness.
You need to have way more than just a depressing atmosphere and style to your movie, in order to turn it into an effective or intriguing enough movie to watch.Yes, I understand very well that the movie its dark, cold and lonely atmosphere is a reflection of the main character, played by Rachel Weisz, her state of mind but instead of strengthening its emotions or any of its drama, it makes the movie a very slow and seemingly pointless one, that is hard to ever feel involved with, in any way or form.I just could never care enough about anything that was happening in this movie.
THE DEEP BLUE SEA is set in the 1950′s and flashes back to the War years of the 40′s – so it is appropriate that the title also features in a popular song lyric of the time ' we are all between perdition and the deep blue sea'.London in 1950 was still very much showing the effects of the War and amid this drab and shattered cityscape, in a small dingy flat, Hester ( Rachel Weisz) has decided to commit suicide using the gas meter, but is revived.
The story takes place over a single day about ten months after Hester leaves her husband.This was originally a Terence Rattigan play that first went to screen in the 1950′s with Vivian Leigh in the lead role and Kenneth More as Freddie and Eric Portman as the stern judge.
The other has Hester and Freddie dancing in a pub, smoke sits heavy on the air, the light is fractured through the window slats and the Jo Stafford song that was so popular at the time ' You Belong To Me' has the patrons singing with it.The film was both written and directed by Terence Davies.
Perhaps because both Terences ( Rattigan and Davies) were / are gay men, there is a nuanced sympathy for Hester whose life from its start as a Vicar's daughter, through to her marriage to a hidebound upper class man whose mother loathed her as unfit for him, and culminating in her last chance at happiness and love being smashed because Freddie is a shallow and fickle man whose greatest time was as a RAF pilot during the Blitz and he will never move on from that.A mature, well crafted film, with occasional echoes of BRIEF ENCOUNTER, it has many strong points, but none stronger than Rachel Weisz.
It was Willy what got drownded in the deep blue sea"- American Folk Song.Based on the 1952 play by Terrence Rattigan, Terence Davies meshes personal pain with the struggles of the British people to overcome the effects of a devastating war in his latest film, The Deep Blue Sea. Known as the British Terence Malick, Davies has directed only seven films in the last 35 years including masterpieces such as The Long Day Closes, Distant Voices, Still Lives, The House of Mirth, as well as his recent documentary Of Time and the City that depicted the sad demise of his home town of Liverpool, England.
The Deep Blue Sea, set in London just after the war, is filled with nostalgia for a world that is long past, but is also universal in its theme of loneliness and alienation.The story centers on Hester Collyer, a woman (Rachel Weisz) in her forties who is locked in a loveless marriage to Sir William Collyer, a much older judge (Simon Russell Beale).
She finds this passion, however, in her love for Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), a former RAF pilot who has returned from the war, but is still emotionally tied to its "glories." Freddie, however, cannot return her love and Hester's frustration threatens her ability to retain her emotional balance.She swallows twelve pills and lights the gas furnace on her room in a suicide attempt, apparently sending a message to Freddie not to leave her and inflicting guilt on her husband for requesting a divorce.
It's safer." Guarded enthusiasm, however, is not in Hester's DNA.Though music plays a large role in The Deep Blue Sea as it does in Davies' earlier films, it is used selectively and features only six pieces.
The beautiful second movement of Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto occupies a full nine minutes at the film's beginning, and the use of communal singing brings back memories of a time when people used music as a means of coming closer to others, not keeping them away with ears plugged into mobile devices.
Music is also used to memorable effect in a panning shot that takes place in a flashback during the war as people huddle together for shelter in a tube station as a soldier sings "Molly Malone," the unofficial anthem of Dublin.The Deep Blue Sea could have easily become a soap opera, yet Davies has crafted a film of physical and emotional richness that can stand as one of his finest achievements.
The Deep Blue Sea is a period romance focusing on Hester (Rachel Weisz), the wife of a judge who embarks on an affair with the reckless RAF pilot Freddie (Tom Hiddleston).
There was also good performances from smaller characters, most notably Hester's husband Sir William (Simon Russell Beale) who's role was vulnerable and gentle, an opposite to the rival of his wife's affections.The Deep Blue Sea is quite a powerful and interesting love story, but sadly I felt that the possibility of this film being a great classic romance was tarnished somewhat by the lack of clarity in time shifts.
English actor, screenwriter and director Terence Davies' fifth feature film which he wrote, is an adaptation of a play from 1952 by English playwright Terence Rattigan (1911-1997) which was inspired by the suicide of a young man that Terence Rattigan had loved.
It tells the story about a woman named Hesther Collyer whom is married with a High Court judge named Sir William Collyer, and who during the 1950s in Great Britain falls in love with a Royal Airforce pilot named Freddie Page.Distinctly and precisely directed by British filmmaker Terence Davies, this rhythmic fictional tale which is narrated by the protagonist and from multiple viewpoints, draws a moving portrayal of a middle-aged woman who leaves her older husband after starting an affair with a younger man in London.
While notable for it's atmospheric milieu depictions, sterling production design by UK production designer James Merifield, cinematography by German cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister, costume design by English costume designer Ruth Myers and use of music, this character-driven, dialog-driven and romantic period drama contains a prominent score by American composer Samuel Barber (1910-1981).This internal study of character which is set against the backdrop of post-war England and which examines a woman's indescribable love for a man whom is not capable of reciprocating her unconditional devotion, is impelled and reinforced by it's fragmented narrative structure, substantial character development, subtle continuity, the expressive acting performances by English actress Rachel Weisz, English actor Tom Hiddleston and the fine supporting acting performances by English actor Simon Russel Beale and English actress Ann Mitchell.
An abridged and incisive love-story which gained the award for Best Actress Rachel Weisz at the 78th New York Film Critics Circle Awards in 2012.The emotional depths and the cinematographic excellence of this impressionistic, elegiac, at times humorous and modestly sensual character piece is undeniably commendable, and this low-keyed story about a middle-class woman who is driven more by the will of her passion then by her reason steers away from becoming as melodramatic as it potentially could have been and ultimately reaches a level of astuteness that encourages contemplation.
Rachel Weiss plays Hester trapped in a flat and dull marriage she finds physical and emotional release in the arms of Freddie (played by Tom Hiddleston) a magnetic yet damaged WW2 pilot who is struggling to adjust to post-war life.
Weisz is a woman in a doomed love affair with a young man (a total jerk as he's portrayed by Tom Hiddleston, so much so that you wonder what attracted her to him in the first place) and with a dumpy husband (Simon Russell Beale) who still loves her.
As much as I love both Tom Hiddleston and Rachel Weisz, I watched this film with a sense of forced emotions.The dialogue seemed too theatrical/staged.
Terence Davies captures the passionate intensity and searing emotion of the story very well, there are some very affecting moments here and the tea scene at the mother's house is very well written and acted and the ending is powerful.Rattigan's writing shines on the most part, heavy on talk (true of the play and Rattigan in general) but intelligent, sharply observant, thought-provoking and full of pathos and insight.However, some aspects of 'The Deep Blue Sea' frustrate annoyingly.
This wit and verve is completely lost here and as a consequence the film feels too dark in terms of mood and overly gloomy and the leaden pace in some scenes, which felt like it was stretched to pad things out, disadvantages it further.Didn't know what to make of the music.
While Weisz and Hiddleston are quite good here, playing a chemistry that is solid and when things fall apart (Weisz's Hester tries to commit suicide and despite trying to cover it up dear Freddie finds it out in the worst possible way) it is effectively harrowing to see unfold emotionally, as is the husband character (Simon Russell Beale, an actor I'm not too familiar with but plays the "regular" chap with a problem connecting with his emotions excellently, which on the flip side Freddie has no problem doing so Hiddleston does that as well), I wish there had been more development of our main character.
Whatever happens in this world where everything goes or has to go fast and more and more digital, Terence Davies remains the same director with his slow pacing style which I like so much.Everything in this movie works excellent: the first ten minutes with the magnificent music of the Violin Concerto of Samuel Barber brings you immediately in the right mood of the movie.
This is chiefly due to a lack of sympathy with the characters: we do not really understand why Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) should feel as she does, while Tom Hiddleston as Freddie Page is badly miscast.
The film also represents an uneasy mix of Davies' and Rattigan's concerns; there are new musical sequences inserted (for example, a scene in a local pub, and a flashback to wartime London) which have strong echoes of Davies' earlier work (THE LONG DAY CLOSES comes to mind), but which deflect attention away from Rattigan's character-driven piece.
The Deep Blue Sea. It is supposed to be a romantic love story between a married woman "Hester" who is a young wife married to a judge ( an old man )actually.
For while, in spite of their obvious misgivings, the couple in "Encounter" clearly enjoyed being in one another's company, the same can not necessarily be said of the lovers here, who seem to share very few moments of genuine joy and happiness throughout the course of their relationship.The 1952 Terrance Rattigan play focuses on Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz), the young, attractive wife of an elderly judge (Simon Russell Beale) who falls in love with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), an ex-RAF pilot, in post-WW II London.
In a bold move for the time, Hester leaves her husband and moves into a flat with Freddie, but we know immediately that things are not going well, for, as the movie opens, we find Hester attempting suicide, with much of the rest of the story exploring, through a combination of contemporary and flashback scenes, how she's reached this low point of desperation.One of the key elements of the Rattigan play is that it is scrupulously fair to all its characters.
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".
The beautiful young Hester (Rachel Weisz) is bored by her marriage to an old-before-his-time William (Simon Russell Beale).
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 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.
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.
Terence Davies' "The Deep Blue Sea" based on Terence Rattigan's 1952 play takes us back to that time to tell a poignant, haunting story of doomed love.
Basically, set in around the 1950's, Hester Collyer (Golden Globe nominated Rachel Weisz) is a young woman married to the older High Court judge Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale), and is having a passionate affair with handsome young former RAP pilot Freddie Page (Thor's Tom Hiddleston) who is still haunted by memories of the war, and he almost feels no fear and excitement in life anymore.