ON CHESIL BEACH (15)
SKILLFULLY adapted by Ian McEwan from his Booker Prize-nominated novella, On Chesil Beach is a heartbreaking portrait of doomed love that generates one sobering emotional crescendo after another, like waves crashing against a forlorn shore.
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 quiet devastation shared by us and the characters as awkwardness, shame and incomprehension press a self-destruct 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 serve dinner in Florence and Edward’s room.
“We do the silver service on the beef, sir, and then we retire,” one waiter explains, apologetically.
As 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 (AnneMarie Duff) to embrace his passions. Tension in the room builds to the moment Florence and Edward must consummate their marriage.
“Tell me about the last time you got into a fight,” she asks by way of a temporary reprieve from his seduction. “I need to know your worst side.” On Chesil Beach is an artfully composed character study of youthful naivete.
Ronan and Howle are an attractive pairing and Watson, Duff and West provide sterling support in small yet pivotal roles.
“I am... most terribly sorry...” whispers Florence as she fumbles for the right words – no, any words – to soothe her spouse.
Director Dominic Cooke’s film elegantly reveals the chinks of pain and regret in each stuttering syllable.