For a movie that's supposed to be about passion, The Deep Blue Sea is incredibly cold. It's just a disjointed series of scenes of people being miserable together or, in Hester's case, by herself. I was partially on board with why Hester wanted out of her marriage (although her husband is probably the most likable character in the film), but I never understood why she ran off with Freddie, or whether there was some other reason why she was so sad aside from her apparently unhappy relationship. That's the other thing: all the reviews talk about how Freddie is reckless, heartless, abusive, whatever, but I really didn't think he was that bad. He may not be the nicest boyfriend ever, but he doesn't do anything worse than yell a bit and forget Hester's birthday. I normally enjoy depressing love stories, but this one didn't make me feel much of anything.

I could not help mentally comparing the film a bit to Melancholia, another movie about a depressed woman in a relationship that fails (at least, I guess that's what the first half is about), but that film conveys much more information about the couple in question in a much shorter time. The Deep Blue Sea is also horrible to look at; I actually wondered several times whether the theatre I was at had a bad print. Maybe they did. At any rate, a better quality image would not have helped the story. I wondered at various times whether there was supposed to be a point in all this about class differences, or maybe the position of women, or the aftermath of the war in England, or anything at all really, but in the end it all just seemed meaningless. When the film ended, I was left wondering ... that's it!?