The Deep Blue Sea reminded me a lot of In the Mood For Love, with its melancholy atmosphere and the intense focus on seemingly small details. It's an amalgamation of emotionally powerful moments, held loosely together by a premise we've all seen before: a woman cheats on her older husband with an exciting younger man. When we meet Hester, we really don't know anything about her motivations or why she's cheating on her husband. She's obviously caught up with her pilot boyfriend and you're instantly wondering what was wrong with her marriage, if anything at all.

What transforms this small and predictable story into a fine film is Rachel Weisz's incredible performance. With such a melodramatic script and seemingly one…

Originally reviewed on March 30, 2012.

In 2002, long after the popular conception of the melodrama had shifted from a dignified style for theatrical productions to the domain of only cheap soap operas, Todd Haynes made Far From Heaven – a film that did not simply pay homage to the work of 1950s master Douglas Sirk, but came as close as it possibly could to actually being a Sirk picture (homosexual content aside). That Haynes was able to extract a masterpiece out of the genre’s thought-to-be dated stylizations–the swooping, stringy score; the irrational bursts of emotion punctuating long stretches of blank, repressed stares between the characters; the Technicoloresque glow of autumn as a metaphor for life’s renewal—was a miracle that…

There has probably never been a more appropriate director-source material pairing than Terence Davies adapting Terence Rattigan’s wartime play, The Deep Blue Sea. Directing his first non-documentary feature in over a decade it is a pleasing sight to have one of Britain’s great living auteurs making films again. Despite the welcome return I don’t think The Deep Blue Sea is perfect; Although Davies cleverly blends timelines and uses novel scene transitions the film is still, by and large, dogged by the static nature of its source material. Its occasional overwrought melodrama, whilst deliberate, can be a little overbearing at times resulting in taking the audience out of the story. Yet despite the imperfections there is something seductive about the film.…

There are far better reviews of this film already on Letterboxd! If you want an in-depth analysis that is intelligent and interesting, go read Adam Cook's. It's great.

I'll just say that this film is as far from a rom-com as you can get from a film where the plot revolves around a love triangle. There is absolutely zero humour here.

The film has good performances in the main, although they are let down a lot with their dialogue. There are some interesting ideas and concepts about human emotion, self-destruction, love, life, pride etc and they are very carefully explored without actually providing explanations or answers.

But the film is far too literal; does it really need to have characters…

Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand".

Terence Davies’ first narrative feature in over a decade, The Deep Blue Sea adapts the post-war play of Terence Rattigan, the smoky browns of a London torn apart illuminating the screen with precisely the kind of cinematic significance missing in Death of a Salesman. Comparisons to David Lean’s masterwork Brief Encounter are not lightly earned, and it’s the greatest compliment that can be accorded The Deep Blue Sea to say that it recalls that earlier film throughout, the sad story of disillusioned housewife Hester as she finds herself torn between her considerably older husband and damaged pilot lover an emotional tragedy of epic proportions. Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston are marvellous…

The Deep Blue Sea é um melodrama ambientado nos anos 50 numa Londres com visíveis escombros da Segunda Guerra. Uma mulher (Rachel Weisz) abandona o marido aristocrata (velho e frio, lógico!) pelo amante jovem e bonito. O filme é sobre os sentimentos conflitantes dela após essa decisão, que felizmente são mais complicados do que "com quem ela vai ficar". É uma mulher tentando reconstruir sua vida, e o cineasta Terence Davies faz um paralelo com a reconstrução de Londres, com relativo sucesso. Na melhor cena, a protagonista lembra quando se refugiou com o marido no metrô durante um bombardeio: Davies filma um lento travelling de dezenas de refugiados cantando para esquecer as explosões. The Deep Blue Sea cresce sempre que…

The Deep Blue Sea – I know very little of Terrance Davies and even less of Terrance Rattigan, on who’s play this film is based, and despite being aware of the towering reputations of both artists I am almost willing to write them both off here and now. Rachel Weisz’s plays the young wife of a high powered London judge who cannot control her attraction to Tom Hiddleston’s young pilot. The trouble is that Hiddleston’s character is such a swaggering cock that the attraction is almost entirely baffling, shame really as it is the crux of the film. The film grinds along on the tyre less wheel rims of Weisz’s and Hiddleston’s performances. They both put on their best Noel…

The first 10 or 15 minutes of The Deep Blue Sea, Terrence Davie's film about the differences people have in their conception of love set in post-war England, are perfect. It's a tone poem of visual mastery set to the wonderful tones of a violin concerto by Samuel Barber. Each shot is beautifully composed and each edit is purposefully placed and works amazingly with the music. The rest of the film isn't quite as amazing as the opening sequence but it's definitely a must-see.

Set sometime after WWII, Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) has already left her knighted husband (Simon Russell Beale) for Freddie, an ex-RAF pilot (Tom Hiddleston), but her relationship has deteriorated to such a point that she tries…