The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
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Some of the most important relationships in our lives are galvanised by seizing the right words to express an invisible churn of conflicting emotions.
Other relationships fracture and implode in agonising, awkward silences between friends and partners, who are afraid to acknowledge that burning desires now run, at best, lukewarm.
Published in 2007, Ian McEwan’s novella On Chesil Beach is a moving portrait of doomed love, set against the ravishing backdrop of the titular stretch of shingle in Dorset.
It’s a heartbreaking read that generates one sobering emotional crescendo after another.
McEwan has skillfully adapted his Booker Prize-nominated work and the film, directed by Dominic Cooke, comes impressively close to capturing the quiet, body-shuddering intensity that transfers from the page into the tearfilled mind’s eye.
Three-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle are impeccably cast as trembling virginal newlyweds, who are ill-equipped to navigate the minefields of each other’s insecurities and sensitively handled intimations of sexual abuse by one parent.
There is a tragic inevitability to the trajectory of the couple’s fragile relationship, and a devastation shared by us and the characters as a mix of awkwardness and shame press a selfdestruct button, inflicting deep wounds that will never heal.
Gifted violinist Florence Ponting (Ronan) and history graduate Edward Mayhew (Howle) prepare to spend their first night together as husband and wife in a hotel located close to Chesil Beach.
Waiters arrive to server dinner in Florence and Edward’s room.
As the afternoon bleeds into evening, a mosaic of flashbacks illuminates the couple’s radically different backgrounds.
While the bride is at the mercy of strict moral codes of the era, upheld by her mother Violet (Emily Watson) and father Geoffrey (Samuel West), the groom draws on his relationship with his “brain-damaged” mother Marjorie (Anne-Marie Duff) to embrace his passions.
Tension in the room builds gradually to the moment Florence and Edward must consummate their marriage.
On Chesil Beach is an artfully composed character study of youthful naivete and small, telling gestures such as Florence’s flinch when one particular hand touches her shoulder.
Ronan and Howle are an attractive pairing, and Watson, Duff and West provide sterling support.
“I am... most terribly sorry...” whispers Florence as she fumbles for the right words – no, any words – to soothe her spouse in one scene.
Cooke’s film elegantly reveals the chinks of pain and regret in each stuttering syllable.
★★★★★★★★★★