The Room's Temperature Can Be Cut With a Knife
The Deep Blue Sea was a film for people who love theatre — because the most noticeable thing about it was that it seemed to have been transferred one-to-one from the stage. Everything about it announced itself: the delicate violin in the background, the limited scenography, the atmosphere, even the camera work. And I liked it for exactly that.
I also liked it for the performances. Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, and Simon Russell Beale played the main roles of Hester Collyer, Freddie Page, and Sir William Collyer — and the tension between this threesome shifted very dynamically throughout. In most scenes, the room's tension could be cut with a knife.
The story itself was not very groundbreaking — an overly repeated scenario of exchanging a boring but wealthy marriage for passionate but poor love. What bothered me was the all-too-well-portrayed vision of a woman through extremely patriarchal male eyes. A woman incapable of making rational decisions, consumed by passion, driven only by emotion. A woman who could not see any value in her life when she envisioned it without her lover. A woman who was not even a full person without her partner — acting more like a servant, ready to give up anything at any moment just for one more hour alone with him.
On the other hand: a young man in his glory days. Immature on occasion, but living by his own rules — with absolute power in the relationship, dealing all the cards.
That dynamic sat uncomfortably with me throughout. If not for the last scene of Hester putting herself together — optimistically looking into the future, freed from Freddie — I would have been quite disappointed with the storyline. That final image gave me something of a relief. It didn't undo everything that came before it, but it earned the film a little more grace than it might otherwise have deserved.
Davies shot all of this with real precision and a theatrical restraint that was genuinely unusual in contemporary British cinema. The film was worth watching for the performances and the atmosphere alone. Just be prepared to argue with the story while you watch it.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.