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It’s interesting to watch the 2011 version of Terence Rattigan’s play after having recently watched the 1955 one. Anatole Litvak’s version lacked a personal touch and much insight into Hester’s character, but it contains a great performance from Vivien Leigh. It’s compulsively watchable, but makes an odd decision to film such a quiet, intimate story with widescreen and Technicolor panache. Terence Davies made a film that’s equally as great, but also lacking in a few of the same eras. Maybe the problem lies in the material?
Why exactly does Hester throw out her high society marriage to run off with a RAF? The sarcastic answer I want to give is because the RAF is played by Tom Hiddleston, and wouldn’t you runaway with him if you had the chance? But the truth of that matter is never justifiably resolved, nor is the neurosis at the heart of Hester’s character. This film also operates in flashbacks, but they’re not as cleanly presented here. I typically have an aversion to non-linear film-making unless there’s a damn good reason for it. The Deep Blue Sea comes up with a pretty good one: these are Hester’s memories, which she’s trying to sort out, examine, and move on from. So it makes a certain emotional sense to have these memories be a little blurred and jumbled at the beginning before becoming more orderly as time goes on.
Yet it’s in trying to draw a clear reasoning behind Hester’s breakdown that this film slightly stumbles from being sublimely great. It sometimes spells out its themes too grandly, or takes easy shorthand when a quiet moment would have done much better. But perhaps there just isn’t as much to Hester as I originally thought. She seems to be in love with love, wrapped up in the idealism of a hopeless romantic without having to face the realities of making something work. Maybe Davies, clearly a romantic given some of his unnecessarily arty framing of the lovers in the early parts of the film, just couldn’t smooth over the rough patches of the script?
No matter though, just like Leigh before her, Weisz steps up the challenge of trying to make sense of this woman and delivers a finely textured performance. When the writing announces itself too grandly, she uses to delicate features to look like a slowly cracking china doll. This is a role that could easily be given over to hysterics, lots of awards show clip worthy moments of her crying and breaking down while loudly pronouncing the sorrow of her fate, but Weisz is a smart enough actress to know that would not be in service of her character. Maybe modulating her performance to such a low-key is what kept her sidelined in the 2011 Best Actress race? She was definitely deserving of consideration, even if the film makes awkward choices around her central performance.
As for the men in the life, Hiddleston seems an odd choice to play a man who is worried about coming across as intellectually inferior and emotionally unavailable. His high-cheek boned good looks seem right at home as a loquacious wit or a member of the bourgeoisie. No matter, while he doesn’t entirely look the part, he plays it to great strength, nailing scenes of drunken emotional stupor or callously lacking in empathy, yet still giving us glimpses of the passionate man who made Hester throw everything away. And Simon Russell Beale plays the jilted husband with quiet pride and wounded dignity. It’s clear from several scenes that he cannot connect emotionally with others due to the abuse thrown at him by his mother, but that he does truly love Hester, even if that means letting her go. Beale follows Weisz lead and does it all with subtlety and grace.
