Review: The Deep Blue Sea

Director: Terrence Davies. Stars: Rachel Wiesz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale.

Adapted from the play The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan

This film is about Hester (Weisz) who is married to a respected judge (Russell) and has an affair with Royal Air Force Pilot Freddie Page (Hiddleston.)

It is difficult to write how I feel about The Deep Blue Sea. I didn’t hate it, but I’m not too fond of it either. I got more into it and more frustrated at the same time as the film progressed.  I remember a while ago when I saw the trailer that it looked promising and I was very eager for a good love story and to some degree, I got that.  (P.S. I’m picky with my love stories. I often find them contrived and unrealistic to what I think about love. The characters unbelievable or I can’t relate to them, as well as a lack of chemistry between the actors when others see it.)  After thinking about it for over a week, I accepted that this was a story about an unhealthy and destructive love. Not a healthy and prosperous love that betters you.  

The performances to me are what stood out the most about this film and saved it. Rachel Wiesz as Hester Collyer plays the bored but dutiful wife in post WWII London. You feel her frustration and pain with her life, even to the point of being suicidal. After she falls in love with Freddie Page, her whole world becomes about him. At one point she admits that she loves him more than he loves her and she knew the risk.  When asked “How can you love a man who gives you nothing?”  Hester answers “But he does give me something [...] himself” She is so hopelessly in love with Freddie that she leaves her husband, but it soon crumbles and she does not know what to do with herself and how to keep Freddie. The tittle thus fits perfectly, as Hester drowns more and more in her love for Freddie and becomes increasingly self destructive and desperate. 

Freddie then leaves after accepting a job in South America, and since Hester cannot go with him (her husband refuses a divorce and she doesn’t seem to fight too hard for one,)  he no longer wants her, she accepts that the relationship is over. Hester is now completely alone and not better for it, her mental health and future uncertain.

By the end of the film I was very frustrated with Hester, with her passiveness and drama queen antics. I didn’t know if I wanted to hug her or slap her.  As I thought more about her and Wiesz’s great performance, it came to me that this may be a more realistic characterization of a woman in an all consuming love affair.  Despite Wiesz’s gutsy performance of an unlikeable person, I felt that I’ve seen the character of the bored aristocratic wife who finds passion and temporary happiness with another man before. This didn’t feel like anything new to me.

Freddie, played by Tom HIddleston, who is more known for portraying Loki in Thor and The Avengers, is good and shows his talent as a classically trained actor. Freddie starts off as sweet, fun and charming, but we soon see a man who is also lost and attempting to find himself after the war. More and more is revealed about his true nature, and it is not all that pleasant. I ended up wondering why Hester was so in love with him, especially after his coldness and cruelty to her grows. Then again, the old saying of love is blind comes to mind.  By the end of the film, Iboth Hester and Freddie frustrated me and I ending up disliking both of them. 

Although the story ended up not doing much for me, technically, the film is beautiful. The 1950’s setting of London, the fashion and music all work together, in particular in a touching scene with Hester and Freddie dancing in a pub. As well as some of the most beautiful transitions between scenes I’ve seen recently.

In the end, the focus seemed more on creating an atmosphere of coldness and boredom that may not appeal to many people, and the story fell flat with the strongest element being the performances that make the film worthwhile.