Second post today!
I had to grab the opportunity to see "45 YEARS" with both hands as it only had one showing at the Scala and that was at 1pm in the afternoon. Shame on Prestatyn-ites too as I was the only bloke in the cinema, more fool them as this is one of the most powerfully acted movies I have seen in a long long time.
Set in an Autumnal Suffolk, the story centres , quite claustrophobically, upon Kate and Jeff , a comfortably well off , left wing couple approaching their seventies. Kate's world is her husband and the pair fill their cultured days , reading, pottering around the house and preparing for their 45 year anniversary party. A party that was postponed for five years because of Jeff's cardiac surgery. Out of the blue Jeff receives a letter stating that a former girlfriend's body has been found 50 years after she disappeared after a fall into a Swiss Glacier, and in the days that follow we follow just how this news affects the couple as Jeff mourns the vigour of his youth and Kate obsessively explores a former love of which she had little knowledge of.
It's an unsettling and incredibly powerful film and a triumph for Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay who play husband and wife.
Rampling carries the whole film as Kate, a woman who is shaken to the core with the realisation that she was not the first love in her husband's life . Through a score of quietly painful scenes we watch as Kate veers from icy passive aggressive politeness to repressed fury and confusion as she unearths ancient truth after ancient truth . Rampling's control of these scenes make the whole movie so believable.
There are no histrionics, no emotional romping, just a very believable set of conversations between two people that know each other so very well but who are experiencing very different reactions to old age, dependency and love.
It's rare to see two seventy somethings dominating a film so completely......and Rampling and Courtenay are class acts..........if they don't dominate the BAFTAs and Oscars next year..there is no justice....
9/10
I had to grab the opportunity to see "45 YEARS" with both hands as it only had one showing at the Scala and that was at 1pm in the afternoon. Shame on Prestatyn-ites too as I was the only bloke in the cinema, more fool them as this is one of the most powerfully acted movies I have seen in a long long time.
Set in an Autumnal Suffolk, the story centres , quite claustrophobically, upon Kate and Jeff , a comfortably well off , left wing couple approaching their seventies. Kate's world is her husband and the pair fill their cultured days , reading, pottering around the house and preparing for their 45 year anniversary party. A party that was postponed for five years because of Jeff's cardiac surgery. Out of the blue Jeff receives a letter stating that a former girlfriend's body has been found 50 years after she disappeared after a fall into a Swiss Glacier, and in the days that follow we follow just how this news affects the couple as Jeff mourns the vigour of his youth and Kate obsessively explores a former love of which she had little knowledge of.
It's an unsettling and incredibly powerful film and a triumph for Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay who play husband and wife.
Rampling carries the whole film as Kate, a woman who is shaken to the core with the realisation that she was not the first love in her husband's life . Through a score of quietly painful scenes we watch as Kate veers from icy passive aggressive politeness to repressed fury and confusion as she unearths ancient truth after ancient truth . Rampling's control of these scenes make the whole movie so believable.
There are no histrionics, no emotional romping, just a very believable set of conversations between two people that know each other so very well but who are experiencing very different reactions to old age, dependency and love.
It's rare to see two seventy somethings dominating a film so completely......and Rampling and Courtenay are class acts..........if they don't dominate the BAFTAs and Oscars next year..there is no justice....
9/10
What a wonderful review!
ReplyDeleteI have read such a lot about this film John and all of it praise. I shall go and see it when it finally arrives up here.
ReplyDeleteSounds good, unfortunately it is not showing yet in my local cinema so I will have to settle for Minions on Saturday.
ReplyDeleteYou write great reviews, John. I like to know what I'm getting into before I shell out the money for a movie!
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I find the description of this film's storyline rather scary, although no doubt a great film, perhaps a raw nerve, and i don't think i could handle it. x
ReplyDeleteIts quite a cold film ....so i agree........its a bit scary
Deletesounds like a great film!
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard of Charlotte Rampling in years. How wonderful.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Two masters of their art! I'll be on the lookout for this film when it finally comes to Canada.
ReplyDeleteSounds like my kind of movie.
ReplyDeleteI'm not especially familiar with Mr. Courtenay, but adore Charlotte Rampling and wish we saw her more frequently. I'll be watching for this to appear at Amazon; there's no chance it will show anywhere near here.
ReplyDeleteBit of good news here: I drove yesterday, for the first time in over two years. Can you hear me shouting 'Freeeeeedom'! ?
I too will be looking for this one, John. I so admired Rampling in her role in Broadchurch last year.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this.
I would love to see this ! Sometimes I care less about the story and just want to see certain actors, acting .. like Charlotte Rampling.
ReplyDeleteI saw the coming attractions of this film last week. It looked really good and had to be better than the featured film, Robert Redford (of the ancient face and 30 year old hair) and Nick Nolte in "A Walk in the Woods. They should have taken a bus.
ReplyDeleteWhat a perfect pairing; Courtney and Rampling.
ReplyDeleteI was pretty confident that you were going to like this, J.G. If you hadn't I wouldn't have spoken to you for a whole.......day! It's a terrible shame that at your screening it was so deserted - and for such a deserving film as well. Let's hope that with your opinion and your mutitude of followers (plus, to a lesser extent, my own review) we will get more people to support this truly 'quality' British film.
ReplyDeleteBtw: Was it really set in Suffolk as you say? I suppose that notwithstanding the Norfolk Broads and visits to Norwich it still could have been.
Near enough
DeleteI will see that. She was in Broadchurch.
ReplyDeleteA very moving and thought-provoking film, but my goodness, they were a pretty dreary and negative couple, don't you think? And both obsessed with his lost love rather than moving on into the future. I couldn't quite believe that Kate was so desperately unhinged by the knowledge that Jeff once loved another woman as much as her. Why did she find it so incredibly threatening? If I was her, I'm sure I would have been sympathetic to his loss rather than affronted.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that they were childless was the key..... Kate's life was jeff and she effectively became more controlling after his illness.......she had no idea that jeff could and would have had a marriage and children before her.....
DeleteBanging around in that big house didnt help.... Too much time to think