The Deep Blue Sea (M). Director: Terence Davies. Starring: Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale, Barbara Jefford. 98 minutes
Is canasta a game or a sport? Is mere enthusiasm something to be derided, when the alternative is passion, with its connotations of rawness and freedom?
The exchange between weary housewife Hester (Weisz) and her wealthy mother-in-law (Jefford) is a finely wrought specimen of passive aggressive repartee. But it's also a summary of Hester's state of mind: although her husband Sir William (Beale), a judge, does not yet know it, Hester's enthusiasm for their marriage has been negated by her passion for another man, RAF pilot Freddie (Hiddleston).
This flashback is stained by the knowledge that we, the audience, have of the trauma that is to come to Hester on the road that she has chosen. When her infidelity is discovered, she is rejected by the deeply hurt William, but readily flees to the arms of the cocky but haunted Freddie. Her desire for him is excruciating in its ferocity, especially once it becomes clear that his feelings for her are less profound.
Having rejected one partner and being now neglected by another, Hester lapses into a viscous depression. Which is where we find her at the film's commencement. Most of the film takes place over the course of a single day; Hester's failed suicide attempt during the opening scene draws the genuinely caring William back into her life, but repels Freddie — the reverse of Hester's hoped-for outcome.
A scattering of dreamy flashbacks (including of that terse exhange between Hester and her mother-in-law) reveal Hester's histories with these two men: one who offers the safety and mundaneness of love and nurture; the other who promises the heat, colour and even danger of passion. In short The Deep Blue Sea is a portrait of a woman trapped in the tumult between two failed relationships.
As a housewife escaping from the oppression of domesticity into the recklessness of adultery, Hester can be seen as an heir to the spirits of Lady Chatterley or Madame Bovary. In a sense, the perennially discontent Hester is more difficult to sympathise with than these predecessors. Yet Weisz's performance is utterly captivating, as it ebbs and billows and sometimes blazes within cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister's long, slow takes.
Captivating, yes, but also devastating: Hester's story may on the surface seem prosaic, but it is executed with breathtaking emotional intensity. Writer-director Davies' adaptation of Terence