A wonderful film

Very nice write up! I'm absolutely dying to see this movie. Sadly, I have no idea when it's coming out here in Australia. I adored the trailer. It has a very old-fashioned feel to it (kind of in the vein of The End of The Affair).

Once again, great review!

"Next time, I get to seduce the rich guy."

Thanks for this review. I have recently added a positive review to the imdb page. As you'll see from that, I agree that this film is quite wonderful. With the partial exception of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"--which I thought was very good, but not as good as this--it simply towers over the other British films that have come out this year. It is infinitely superior to "We Need to Talk about Kevin": where "TDBS" is visually poised, "Kevin" is simply garish; and where "TDBS" is brimming with nuance and ambiguity, "Kevin" is scene after scene of a vicious little kid being a vicious little kid, an utterly remorseless and unelightening experience. And the less said about "Shame" the better; that's one of the worst films I have ever seen. (A film about a handsome, wealthy, and confident man who we are meant to think is some kind of tragic case, which is rather difficult given that the only thing we ever know about him is that he is extraordinarily successful with women. Oh yes, and apparently he "comes from a bad place"--whatever that means.) And yet, both of these films have been highly praised, whereas "TDBS", although highly praised in some quarters, has not received the kind of praise it deserves.

Of course, we live in dark times, and it is unsurprising, in such times, that a film as distinctive as this should come in for criticism. This is a film for adults, which does not spoon-feed its audience with the standard cinematic pleasures, but invites them to share in the singular vision of a real artist. And that is not what the unthinking mediocrities who review films in the “broadsheets”—or on the “blogs”—are interested in. So, the film has come in for various stupid criticisms: for not having a tear-jerking climax (as if Davies should have made “Beaches”); for not having enough locations and as a result being theatrical (as if they have never seen “Cries and Whispers”); for having “stilted” performances (as if they cannot tell the difference between a representation of stiltedness and a stilted representation); for a “manipulative” use of music (which barely features in the film outside of the opening overture); for having “interminable” scenes of people singing (which together occupy about two minutes of screen time); for daring to tamper with Rattigan’s play (as if a film of a play should simply film a play)—and so on. But I suppose this is to be expected. We live in a dismal, jabbering, unthinking culture. And, in such an age, we should be immensely grateful for a jewel of a film such as this. Truly, a film out of time.

I like that review. Here's mine:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/movies-with-greg-and-chris/movie-review-the-deep-blue-sea/10151502930090262


THE DEEP BLUE SEA

1 hr 38 mins

Note to Readers: Chris “Noel Coward“ Herren is working hard at making sailor tales look like straight war flicks, so Greg “Harold Pinter“ Abreu will be penning this review solo.

WHY WE CHOSE IT – The Manong is greedily cramming as many indie-film chestnuts into his cheek pockets as possible, before the onslaught of summer schlock-busters descends upon us like a horde of noisy 3-D locusts.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT – A 1950 post-WWII troubled upper-class upper-30s hottie played by Rachel Weisz, who, while married to a rich, loving but old-fashioned older dude, falls into an emotionally and physically passionate affair with a dashing but psychologically battle-scarred, emotionally unreliable impoverished boozy RAF pilot, played by Tom Hiddleston (better known as Loki in the THOR series), causing her to devolve from deeply dissatisfied kept wife to a profoundly depressed and suicidal adulteress, desperate to discover an identity apart from being defined by her attachment to men.

HOLLYWOOD PITCH LINE – WATCHING GRASS GROW meets SMELLING PAINT DRY.

SUBTEXT – Find yourself before you find your mate. Unless you were psychologically adrift because you were trying to survive five years of being bombed by German planes and rockets.

CAST – Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Ann Mitchell, Simon Russell Beale; Director: Terence Davies; Writers: Davies. From 1950’s British play by Terence Rattigan.

WARNINGS - Rated: R – A semi-nude scene omitting the fun bits of 1950s English post-coital hetero afterglow. A couple F-bombs. Should have been PG-13.

GREG's TAKE – First, don’t confuse this week’s movie, “THE” DEEP BLUE SEA, with (sans “the”) DEEP BLUE SEA, the 1999 sci-fi shark fantasy where Samuel L. Jackson became a human McNugget for a brainiac shark.

THE DEEP BLUE SEA is one of those “art” movies that makes me cringe when talking with other critics. To be the only one in the room who doesn’t like the movie that the critics rave about, is like blowing the proverbial fart in church. To tell critics that you thought their beloved film was a snore is to get that pity-stare which says “oh you poor dumb bastard, you didn’t get it, did you?” Some of you probably remember that look when you told all your friends you thought INCEPTION was impossibly convoluted.

This was one of the rare times I wish I saw the 1952 play of the same name from which this movie is based, because the play simply HAD to be more compelling and less somnambulistic than the film.

Playwright Sir Terence Rattigan, who, along with his playwright peer Noel Coward, was in 1960 perhaps the world’s highest paid playwright. Also like Coward, Rattigan was gay, in a place and time where doctors and other professionals could lose their licenses if outed. In their day from WWII to the mid-1960s, writers who desired broad commercial acceptance did not wave the rainbow flag, instead sublimating their underground social message. Unlike the more popular Coward, who wielded his “homosexually-informed” socio-political sensibility like an almost imperceptibly needle-thin satire stiletto slipping between the ribs of prejudice and stereotype, Rattigan symbolized his secret social burden by using straight characters carrying shameful hetero secrets, carrying a melancholy weight of whispered desperation, punctuated with lonely silent screams of helplessness from bearing a burden too heavy and too secret to live with.

CUT TO THE CHASE – Consider renting this vague meditative montage of disquieting silences on a gray rainy day when you’re steeling yourself to have “that discussion” with your lover who’s married – but not to you.

WORTH SPENDING THEATER BUX? -- NOT WORTH IT.

WHAT WE WANT TO SEE – THE RAID: REDEMPTION – This is the Indonesian martial arts action sleeper that’s taking English-speaking critics and international audiences by storm. YES, you read it right – INDONESIAN. The first major international hit which to my knowledge features Indonesian fighting art Pentjak Silat, which is related to Filipino stick and hand arts like Kali and Escrima. Part police thriller, part surreal quasi-horror-fantasy violent gore-fest, it’s been praised as some of the most detailed, authentically brutal MA technique to come out of any MA film, ever. Look for the Manong to review it next week.

WHAT WE DON’T WANT TO SEE – THE LUCKY ONE – Yet another soppy tear-jerker from the Nicholas Sparks rom-porn novel factory that brought you THE NOTEBOOK (2004), A WALK TO REMEMBER (2002) DEAR JOHN (2010), NIGHTS IN RODANTHE (2008), and MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE (1999), all gauzy groaners aimed at stoking women’s heart-ons.

As 18th century French writer Bernard De Fontenelle almost said, the greatest obstacle to enjoying movies is to expect too much. So go watch something good, then meet us back here next week.

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