Review of The Deep Blue Sea (1994) by Craig T — 02 Dec 2011

I seem to have developed the habit of going to films and approaching the experience like a miser who is desperate to feel that they've received value for money (this may have a lot to do with taking my children to dozens of movies down the years). Thus I was eager to enjoy The Deep Blue Sea: out on a Saturday night; wanting to feel that hey! the weekend's passing with a swing and a buzz (note: I count enjoying a deeply depressing movie as a "buzz."). "Thumbs up or thumbs down?" I said to my companions as we walked out of the cinema. My view was "thumbs up," but even as I said it I was getting my qualifications in order. For a start if it was a serious and worthy effort to deliver an hour and a half of drama, it was dull. Or "flat" as The Guardian's Catherine Shoard has it. If Rattigan's dialogue is stiff and dated, then Davies's sticking to it was a mistake. It was perfectly matched by flawless period set design and execution. and here was another serious problem. Reality does not consist of flawless carpets, clothes and cars. In early 1950s London, as any historian of the period will happily tell you, the city was grimy, scruffy and pock-marked with war damage. It was also regularly choked with fog as a result of factory pollution and a million or so households burning dirty coal. Yet throughout the movie Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston fought their way through their script, supposedly torn apart by existential misery like a pair of gilded birds. Apparently there's a law now that if you want an American release for your movie, every character has to be seen in a brand new pair of trousers and shirt, not to mention tie, shoes and jacket. Thus we had the sight of a crowded pub overflowing with a sea of extras beautifully attired in working class clobber. No wonder then, that I realised that my list of qualifications included not caring a hoot one way or another for any of the characters save Simon Russell Beale's cuckolded husband who was exceptional throughout.

The much commented on pub scenes were also hugely problemmatic. From an approach that one can safely say was naturalistic, if only broadly so in the event of Davies' decision to cut up time somewhat, we swung into hyper-reality watching an entire pub clientele singing away happily as if Clement Attlee had just announced the end of rationing and a thousand pound gift for every citizen. Sorry, Terence, you can't just swing from one style to another and hope no one will notice the clunk.

Not that the overwhelming majority of critics seem to have cared about this and most other flaws. Again I agree with Shoard about Weisz's performance. Whether she is hampered or not by the fact that in every movie I've seen her in the camera seems to want to devour her sexually in every scene in which she appears, but here she in no way conveys the emptiness and despair of a suicide. Indeed, her attempts to convey emotion are as effective as a cheap toupe for this customer. For me, she is always beautiful Rachel, not the character she plays. I would worry that this says more about me than the actress, but at least some critics agree. (" And while Rachel Weisz sobs gamely, an exotic knockout even when vomiting sleeping pills or zonked out by gas fumes, it's a performance that fails to linger in the memory." The G.).

One scene was, however, excellent - this where Weisz and Beale spend an excruciating lunch with the latter's fearsome mother. His face, writhing in pain as he tries to endure the seething negativity of each woman's feelings for each other was a perfect vehicle for presenting the power of the mid-century middle class matriarch.

All in all, though, this is a film where one sees the gushing warmth of the critics and goes, "Huh-whaaa?" It is very hard to imagine how they managed to be moved by such an effortful attempt to show us the difficulties relationships at this time faced, hampered by convention and the need to compromise, and men suffering from the experience of war and its sometimes relentless shadow. The last few frames are fitting: a slow pan down a London cul-de-sac, its war damage looking less like slow national recovery because of an exhausted economy than Jerry still sending over doodlebugs. And boys play in the rubble wearing freshly manufactured grey shorts and tank tops. Clunk! goes Terence one more time.

For a far better movie of this type, see Neil Jordan's adaptation of Greene's "The End of the Affair.".

CWT.