Remake is DEADLY AWFUL! What a Schlepper.
If you want to see the 1955 original, it's on YouTube, although poor quality. But it's still watchable and "listenable." It's what a Rattigan script should be like: It teems with all the characters, banter, historical, and social setting that creates the universe of the screenplay. By contrast, the remake is just bloody awful.
It's schleppy, offers no real context in terms of post-war societal terms, and where the hell did that "Mummy" (judge's mother) come from? I enjoyed Barbara Jefford's performance, but having her there was like a sledgehammer knocking in the "sexless, mummy boy's" persona of the husband. The husband in the original is far from macho, but not portrayed as a namby-pamby.
The original crackles with dialogue, action, and the real tension of the emotions of the characters. It moves along very well. The remake, on the other hand, just sludges along with a lousy script. The characters all act like they're sleepwalking.
The original, BTW, also had the wonderful character of the busybody neighbor, Miss Maxwell, who liked to insinuate herself into gossipy situations.
In the remake, the scene in the museum was ridiculous. No well-behaved Brits would have behaved and talked like that in public.
For those who don't understand the title, one of Vivien Leigh's lines, early in the film, after her landlady asks about why she attempted suicide, is (somewhat paraphrased): "What possessed me? The devil, I suppose...but not quite that kind of devil...but when you're between any kind of devil and the deep blue sea, the deep blue sea sometimes looks very inviting." It's not hard to see that that "deep blue sea" is submitting to oblivion, to giving up on life. In the remake, it's the landlady who says (late in the film), "Sometimes it's difficult to judge when you're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea," which makes nowhere near as much sense as Hester saying it in the original.
("Between the devil and the deep blue sea" is an old saying, and also a song by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler that was wonderfully sung by, among others, the inimitable Ella Fitzgerald.)
I also felt like there was ZERO CHEMISTRY between Weisz (with her 1970's hairstyle) and Hiddleston. He had none of the caddish charm that Kenneth More had. He just ranted like a snobby upper-class twit; not at all convincing for his character.
There are so many dead spots in this movie, it's unbearable. Just the opposite from the original. And the syrupy music just makes things worse. In addition, that rooming house building just looked all wrong--seemed very modern and upscale, totally out of place considering the housing stock and architecture back then.
I think Mike Leigh, for example, could have done an infinitely better job of directing a remake; he's very invested in the "slices of life" of the British people, and knows how to realistically portray them.
Trust me, you're better off watching even a deteriorating print of the 1955 original on YouTube than this dreadful, dreary, boring, pointless remake.