It is my opinion that Davies is Britain's best film-maker and I approached this film wanting it to be good and wanting it to succeed. I am familiar with the play, having seen it on stage, and having seen the 1994 television production directed by Karel Reisz, with Penelope Wilton, Colin Firth and Ian Holm. That production followed very closely the text of the play, even to the point of using titles to introduce the three acts.
The play is set in the fifties; Davies' formative years, and the period with which he is most comfortable. Davies has used images that are dark and sepia-coloured. Also the image is soft, as it might be in an 'old master'. Some scenes take place in a pool of light in the centre of the frame, surrounded by blackness; other scenes darken towards the edges and corners of the frame.
i have a high regard for Terence Rattigan but I don't think that his texts are sacred and should not be changed; nevertheless it takes some courage to write dialogue to put next to Rattigan's. In this some critics have said that Davies has been successful. I don't think that it is appropriate to compare the film and the play simply to criticise the film for being different. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see what changes Davies has made.
The play starts when the main character, Hester, has just attempted suicide by unlit gas fire. Davies has written scenes painting in her back story, particularly showing her relationship with her mother-in-law. Hester is married to a titled judge, Sir William Collyer, and has left him to live in a modest flat with the man she has fallen in love with, Freddie Page, a raffish fighter pilot who's heydays were the war years and who is now directionless and going to seed. Page was played by Kenneth More in the first production of the play and by Colin Firth in the 1994 TV production. Here Sir William is played by Simon Russell Beale, Freddie by Tom Hiddleston and Hester by Rachel Weisz.
The actors are all good in their parts, although I think that Simon Russell Beale makes the strongest contribution. The casting is slightly more variable. Rachel Weisz is very good but is maybe too beautiful for the part. She is also the least fifties-looking thing in the film. I have come to admire Tom Hiddleston for the work he has done for Joanna Hogg, particularly in Archipelago, but here he doesn't seem so appealing or raffish, with his very short hair, tight buttoned cardigans and bony features. Interestingly, Davies is quoted as saying he cast Hiddleston because he is good at throwing himself onto sofas. Simon Russell Beale is excellent, although maybe a little old for Hester. When he says he occasionally plays tennis I found it hard to imagine.
The neighbours who found Hester unconscious have been removed (we hear only their voices) and the part of the doctor who treats Hester has been reduced. I preferred his sagacity, comments and advice to Hester, which have been removed, to the mother-in-law's spitefulness, which has been added.
Davies is very musical and music is important to him. Here, apart from the popular songs, he has used Barber's violin concerto, played by Hilary Hahn, which is wonderful. I was disturbed as people hurried from the cinema during the credits while this music was playing.
After The House Of Mirth this film is a return to the look and feel of Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, with the mean brick tenement where Hester and Freddie live, with a sepia-coloured look, and with communal singing in pubs. There is a wonderful flashback to a wartime scene of people singing as they bed down in an Underground station - a flashback to Hester's memories. There is also a wonderful scene of the type we look forward to in Davies's films - a shot down from the ceiling of slowly rotating entwined bodies on a bed, initially naked and then slightly clothed, sketching in time passing in the relationship. The film finishes with a marvelous scene when Hester, alone, goes to her gas fire and lights it and, in close-up, the flames fill the frame, telling us that Hester has decided to live.
I don't think the added dialogue is entirely successful, being a little clunky and with a slight whiff of cliché, and I'm not sure that the added scenes are better than the removed ones. But, then, Davies is a film-maker, not a play-write, so what were we to expect?
All of Davies' initial films (except The Neon Bible) were autobiographical, and there was a time when I was worried that when that vein dried up he would have nowhere to go. Then he made The House of Mirth and I stopped worrying. That film saw him address new challenges and it was a triumph, forcing Davies' growth as a film maker yet being rich with evidence of his particular gift.
The Deep Blue Sea is a return to previous form and a retrenchment. It is a moving, interesting and satisfying film but I thought that the gloominess of the images was pushed a little too far, maybe to the point of affectation and, during the first half-hour of the film, the softness of the image was causing me to wonder whether the projectionist was asleep at the wheel, or whether it was deliberate. I'm still not sure. I found it frustrating no to be able to find anywhere in the image fine detail that was sharp, such as eyes or hair. The added scenes were not entirely successful and I think that Davies, Edith Wharton and Gillian Anderson made a more successful cocktail than we find here.
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