The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea

Directed by Terence Davies

Adapted from the play by Terence Rattigan

With Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russel Beale

The powerful “Deep Blue Sea” tells a simple enough story.  A married woman has a love affair that throws her into romantic despair, destroying her well being and endangering her life.  What makes this story so haunting is the towering performance of Rachel Weisz as well as co stars Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale.   

It comes to life in 1950 in a London still rubble strewn from World War Two. “Deep Blue Sea” was written by British playwright Terence Rattigan, one of the most popular playwrights of the 20th Century and directed for the screen by Terence Davies. This hypnotic film communicates what it feels like to be swept up by emotion and lost in passion.

The story begins as Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) attempts suicide by inhaling gas from a stove.  The rest of the film chronicles in flashbacks what led to this effort. Hester is married to a wealthy older magistrate (Simon Russell Beale).  The marriage is stable and predictable, but totally lacking in passion, and Hester, who is a free spirit, takes up with Freddy Page (Tom Hiddleston), a good looking, but unemployed self-involved playboy, an RAF pilot during the war.

Her husband discovers the relationship and leaves her.  Hester and Freddy move into a quaint, but somewhat shabby walk-up apartment.  There are problems.  Hester loves Freddy above all else; Freddy just wants to have fun.  Freddy is all that matters.

A lot of “Deep Blue Sea” is filmed in murky shadows that capture the aura of that time and the trapped feeling that Hester has.  England has barely recovered from the war.  There is a flashback to the subways being used for Bomb shelters.  It is not a happy time, least of all for Hester who loves more than she is loved.  And she knows it, allowing herself to be humiliated and used by Freddy—but she can’t help herself.

Rachel Weisz gives a mesmerizing and vulnerable performance of a woman in romantic hopelessness.  Her search for joy is palpably painful.  You wish she could leave Freddy but you are made to understand why she cannot.  Tom Hiddleston’s Freddy is totally on target as the callow and fun loving cad who can never give her what she needs.  Simon Russell Beale is solid and staunch as the uncolorful boring Judge.  He still loves Hester and your heart breaks for him as he tries to win her back.

“Deep Blue Sea” is beautifully photographed.  There is attention to small details, such as wallpaper patterns, cobbled streets, dial-up telephones, the formality of the clothing of the time, the ubiquitous cigarette smoking.  Fervent violin music accompanies some of the film as well as post war pop music of the times such as Jo Stafford’s “You Belong to Me.”

Deep Blue Sea captures what it might be like to be “crazy in love.”

You can’t help but be swept away by this spellbinding story of lust

and passionate despair