REVIEW: The Deep Blue Sea (dir. Terence Davies)

Cast: Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale, Ann Mitchell, Karl Johnson

Terence Davies’ adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea is the finale that marks the end of Rattigan’s centenary year. One of the most underrated playwrights of the twentieth century, Rattigan’s devastating wit and subtle emotional depth need to be broadcast to a new generation; and nobody is better suited for the task than Terence Davies.

Her suicide note penned, Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) is lying in a foetal position before the gas fireplace; staring at the rippling stream of noxious fumes for which there is no flame to burn. As she drifts off we see a quiet montage of images: Hester with an older gentleman, her husband, Hester with a younger gentleman, her lover. If you have any expectations of a Rattigan adaptation, they are not being met. This is no kitchen sink drama. This is Luis Bunuel. Abstract, surreal dream sequences; soft hazy memories that have the faint chill of something nightmarish. Davies finds a way to imbue all the tingling anxiety of a Rattigan play into this very cinematic opening.

But the opening subsides, as they all do, and makes way for a more traditional reworking of the play. Hester leaves her stuffy aristocrat husband (played with grace and poise by the inestimable Simon Russell Beale) to pursue love of a more lustful flavour with Battle of Britain survivor Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston). She is a victim of the post-war appetite for freedom and discovery. The world has changed since she was married, and she wants to be out there getting dirty in it. But it doesn’t take long for her to realise that her love for Freddie, and for that brand new sparkling world, cannot be requited.

Davies knows how to fracture a narrative, and does so here with effortless skill. The basic story is simple and coherent, but scenes from different points in the story interrupt each other, creating an extra layer of emotional and psychological distress. Alas, somehow the freshness of the narrative structure is choked out by the traditional, yawning melodrama. Everything from the stained rococo wallpaper to the raucous sing-a-long in the local pub conspires against innovation. There is something timeless about Rattigan’s work, but also something inherently nostalgic and dated; and Davies doesn’t help matters by plastering a violin score onto the film that is too loud and overdramatic.

At 40, Rachel Weisz was the right age to play Hester when filming commenced; but Davies knew that she wouldn’t look a day over 30 on screen. Hester’s youthfulness turns the entire play on its head: what should be a broken adult running away from life is now a doe-eyed English rose escaping the shackles of aristocracy and joining the excited ranks of England’s post-war youth. As this lustful dream crumbles around her, however, we realise that she is not so young after all: she is old enough to be both cruel and utterly dependent.

Without this new perspective this is really just the story of a woman who can’t make her mind up; but fortunately Weisz revels in it. Her weary, haunted gaze veils her delicate features throughout, and were this a more surreal film one might almost suggest that the entire story is a figment of her fume-choked imagination during the throws of attempted suicide. If Davies has borrowed from Bunuel, then Weisz is his Deneuve: she is distant, never quite there, but when she crumbles into tears we feel them in our own throats.

There is a pleasant circularity to the film that is all Davies. Left alone and in tatters, Hester once again lies before the fireplace and allows the fumes to leak out; but with a flick of her wrist she ignites the fire, introducing a flame that warms her already radiant face. She will live to fight on.