FILM

UK 2011 98 mins Dir: Terence Davies Starring: Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale

Terence Davies has been anointed a National Cinematic Treasure for so long that it feels vaguely heretical to confess to not liking any of his films. So if you're a convert to Davies's lush style and enjoy wallowing in those meticulously dressed 50s sets, ignore this review and scamper along to see his adaptation of Terence Rattigan's 'Brief Encounter'-esque stage staple. But if you're unfamiliar with Davies or the play, be warned that you may find it stiff, dated and frequently over-orchestrated, with almost parodic dialogue and a profoundly unsympathetic lead character.

Rather like Davies's previous dramatic feature adaptation, his funereally slow bash at Edith Wharton's 'The House of Mirth' back in 2000, 'The Deep Blue Sea' centres on the downfall of a lady toff, though this time it's love rather than gambling debts that prove to be her undoing. We first meet miserable Hester, aka Lady Collyer (Weisz), as she prepares to do a Sylvia Plath in a rather grim London boarding house, accompanied by a screeching violin score (Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto, fact fans). Flashbacks then reveal her memories of how she got to this point. Stuck in a passionless marriage to doting, beardy high court judge Sir William Collyer (Beale), Hester falls for dashing Battle of Britain veteran ("I was doing something important for dear old Blighty, old fruit") Freddie Paige (Hiddleston). Abandoning hubby and sacrificing her social privileges, she shacks up with Paige. Alas, the brute doesn't reciprocate her feelings and would rather be off carousing or golfing with the lads.

Davies's fetishising of period detail will delight fans of his 'The Long Day Closes' and 'Distant Voices, Still Lives', but it's perhaps telling that the most tart scene is one he invented for the film, in which Hester takes tea with Collyer's frightful old bat of a mother, who warns her of the dangers of passion. For the rest of the film, she spends an awful lot of time staring glumly out of windows and chainsmoking, while Davies's camera caresses her fug like a slavering David Hockney. Weisz gives it her all, but the stately pacing affords plenty of time to reflect on why we are being invited to care about a needy, self-indulgent drama queen who decides to top herself because her bloke spends too long in the pub. (Robin Askew)

website www.facebook.com/TheDeepBlueSeaFilm

Opens: November 25

Copyright Robin Askew 2011