Film Review - On Chesil Beach (15)

Actually I'm a little bit scared.

'Sexual intercourse was invented in nineteen-sixty-three,' said Philip Larkin in his poem Annus Mirabilis, a lament about being born too early to enjoy the benefits of Britain's sexual revolution. It's not for nothing that Ian McEwan set On Chesil Beach, his story of love, frustration and the fear of intimacy, one year earlier. Florence and Edward, the story's fumbling protagonists, bring all the repression of the pre-Beatles era to their marriage bed with painfully funny but potentially disastrous consequences. 

McEwan adapted the screenplay from his own bestselling novella, and retains the book's structure. The couple are at their honeymoon hotel overlooking the spectacular Dorset beach of the film's title, treading a tentative path towards their first night together as husband and wife. Edward (Billy Howle) is gauche and clumsy, clearly less experienced than he might want to admit. Florence (Saoirse Ronan) meanwhile exhibits barely disguised terror at the prospect of their physical union. They both clearly love each other, but struggle to connect on this new level. As their evening progresses, the story flashes back repeatedly to their pasts, hinting at the people and events that have shaped who they are, bringing them to this place where neither can communicate with the other when it is so essential.

Allowing McEwan to do the screen-writing here proves a fine choice. Like his earlier novel Atonement, this is a story about a pivotal moment in people's lives - the influences feeding into it and the consequences spiralling outwards. The movie version of Atonement was ambitious in its scope and splendidly acted, but it's the modestly-scaled On Chesil Beach that better captures the inner lives of its main characters, mining their pasts for the reasons they act as they do. It's all expertly sketched by the author. While these newlyweds are each other's intellectual equal (she's a concert violinist, he an aspiring historian), it's issues of class and religion as well as the expectations of family and society that threaten to wreck their marriage before it has begun. 

Ronan, (so precocious in Lady Bird and in Atonement itself), brings a sympathy and warmth to Florence that nicely undercuts the brittle panic of her wedding-night. Howle (a petty-officer in last year's magnificent Dunkirk) is a strong match for her, his academic intelligence hampered by clumsiness both social and physical; neither type helps ease the situation's pressure. Together these two have the audience willing their happiness, even as the cringe-inducing mini-disasters accumulate.

There's a peppering of great support performances too (all four vastly differing parents are nailed by top-rate British character actors) and Anton Lesser puts in a neat cameo as a less-than-helpful vicar. The direction and cinematography provide a restrained feel, overcast skies and pebbled strand serving as a perfectly subdued background to the unfolding relationship crisis. The music works perfectly too, evocative classical tracks complimenting an original score (the deft and melancholy touch of Lady Macbeth's Dan Jones). It all serves to blend the film's present with its flashback past into a compelling psychological whole.

With the writer of the original novel so intimately (and intuitively) involved, On Chesil Beach comes as close as any film could to transferring McEwan's sublime writing to the screen. The movie is leisurely in the telling for sure, but this is all about the painful minutiae of human interactions and no awkward nuance is missed. Florence and Edward's love story is far from conventional, and for that reason you won't easily (if ever) forget it.    

Gut Reaction: A kind of excruciating amusement/sympathy to begin with, along with a whole other kind of sexual tension. And then moved, in a pretty profound way.

Where Are the Women?: Saoirse (Seer-sha) is excellent again. Add Anne-Marie Duff and Emily Watson as the mums, plus up-and-comer Bebe Cave as Florence's giddy sister. Top representation.

Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. With its stark beauty this is as good an adaptation of McEwan's novella as its creators could have managed, anchored splendidly by the hapless honeymooners. Sexual repression could scarcely be more poignantly conveyed.