Review: The Deep Blue Sea (2012)

The Deep Blue Sea

Rating

Director

Terence Davies

Screenplay

Terence Davies (Play: Terence Rattigan)

Length

1h 38m

Starring

Ann Mitchell, Jolyon Coy, Karl Johnson, Rachel Weisz, Simon Russell Beale, Tom Hiddleston, Harry Hadden-Paton, Sarah Kants, Oliver Ford Davies, Barbara Jefford, Mark Tandy, Stuart McLoughlin, Nicholas Amer

MPAA Rating

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Review

Adapting a stage play to the big screen carries with it unique challenges, but never limits the performative capabilities of the actors. The Deep Blue Sea accentuates the performances, but does it enhance the theatrical experience?

Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston are perfectly cast as the wife of a prominent judge and her soldier lover in the second filmic adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play about a woman’s emotional investment in two men: one stoic, reserved and successful; the other passionate and physical.

Weisz puts everything on the table as Hester Collyer, an emotionally repressed woman who finally finds a way to unbridle her passions while having an affair with another man. The film doesn’t have a lot of places to go, but Hester’s soul is laid bare in it, exposed before an audience as she teeters on the edge of oblivion, nearly succumbing to her suicidal tendencies while struggling to relate to a man whose passion for her has slowly cooled, setting them back into the position in which she began with her husband.

Although much of the attention in the 2012 Oscar season was placed on the wildly, and rightfully, praised Weisz, Hiddleston deserves a great deal of credit for creating such an injured character. Freddie Page survived the war, but has come back emotionally wounded. By engaging in a torrid affair with a married woman, he unleashes his pent-up fears and frustrations, but as he finally grows accustomed to a civilian life, her emotional neediness, and revealed attempt to commit suicide, drive him farther away from her. His performance deserves equivalent applause.

While Rattigan’s play was once successfully adapted to the big screen in 1955, it was only twice adapted to the New York stage in 1952 and again in 1988. However, it has been adapted a staggering 16 times in London. Why the play hasn’t resonated more with American audiences is surprising, especially considering its coded relationship between Hester and Freddie standing in for that of Rattigan and a secret male paramour. This American film adaptation leaves that subtext behind, which hinders its overall resonance.

The Deep Blue Sea isn’t as stage bound as it could have been. The play takes place largely in one apartment in the present and through flashbacks while the film expands it to the London environs. Still, it has a stuffy air that dampens its thematic energy, which might help explain its lack of appreciation by American audiences. It isn’t the finest adaptation of one of Rattigan’s plays, nor is it the best work from Hiddleston and Weisz, but it’s overall a well made and appealing film that should be seen at least for the performances if nothing else.