The ebb and flow of love in The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea
Directed by Terence Davies
In cinemas from June 7

The Deep Blue Sea is a perfect adaptation of the Terence Rattigan play of the same name. It tells of the downward spiral of Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz), the estranged wife of a judge, Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale).

She has been living with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), a dashing former RAF pilot who is trying to settle into life after the war, troubled by his past and not able to find a future in post-war Britain.

After a failed suicide her story is pieced together with flashbacks which tell of her desire to find something new in life and to reconcile her comfortable but sexless marriage to her older husband and her wretched but passionate affair with Freddie.

The film has many elements of the play, with the main action taking place over one day and set mainly in an oppressive flat and the crowded local bar.

Hester and Freddy bicker and banter their way through their attempts to make decisions where the choices are between the devil and the deep blue sea.

This is a film about love, but what each of the characters is seeking or prepared to give is different, and that is source of the pain and tragedy. None can be fully satisfied or fully understand the needs and desires of the other.

Through the characters the film tries to grapple with the social changes brought on by the end of WWII, with individuals looking for more freedom of expression, choice of jobs and choice of futures.

Hester is caught between the conservatism of the past as represented by her husband and the new liberalism Freddie aspires to.

This is an actor’s film. Much of the drama is internalised by the actors is internal, and the audience has to work at understanding Hester as she struggles with her demons and desires.

Rachel Weisz is brings a raw emotional quality without being over-sentimental. Tom Hiddleston’s Freddie is brilliantly immature and callous.

The film is beautifully crafted, with a slowly evolving dreamlike quality which manages to give the dreary 1950s environments a sumptuous a haunting and melancholic feel.

The soundtrack also has a trancelike quality, making extensive use of Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto, which is used throughout to highlight the drama and tension of Hester’s dilemma.

The music is used as an introduction to each of the “acts” of the film and is employed as a commentary rather than background.