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MOVIE: On Chesil Beach STARRING: Saoirse Ronan, Billy Howle, Samuel West, Emily Watson, Anne-Marie Duff.

RATING: M REVIEWER: Wenlei Ma

THAT first night as a married couple is supposed to be special. Or more likely, you’re so exhausted the two of you collapse into a heap on the bed, snoring within minutes.

What that first night is not “supposed” to be is two virginal newlyweds, hand-in-hand, walking toward the imposing bed draped in crimson linen with the kind of apprehension with which condemned prisoners approach the execution chamber.

The year is 1962 and Florence Ponting (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle) are at a seaside hotel on their wedding night. After sitting through an awkward dinner, watched over by the hotel’s clumsy clerks who diluted the wine with water after a spill, Florence and Edward know what’s expected of them. It hangs in the air.

They’re both nervous and it shows in their body language. The sit and stand upright. The conversation is stilted. Florence takes off her shoes and stockings in uncomfortable movements. Ed fumbles with the zip of her aquamarine dress.

These scenes are intercut with flashbacks to their courtship, revealing Florence and Edward’s different family backgrounds and the tenderness, though never passion, between them.

Adapted by Ian McEwan from his own 2007 Booker Prize-nominated novella, On Chesil Beach is a profoundly emotional movie that’s lost some of the poetry and sadness in the transfer from page to screen. It’s a story that relies so heavily on its characters’ inferiority but the film struggles to capture its vividness.

While On Chesil Beach doesn’t hit all the right notes, it does enough to be a graceful period drama about the unfulfilled promises we make to each other and ourselves.