The Deep Blue Sea

THE DEEP BLUE SEA (Terence Davies, 2011)

THE DEEP BLUE SEA opens with Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) reading the suicide note she’s left for her lover, Royal Air Force pilot Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston).  While her passion for him is as intense as ever, she can no longer stand the imbalance in their feelings for one another.  Hester’s attempt is unsuccessful and does her no harm, but considering the place and time--London, around 1950--the act itself could get her in a great deal of trouble as attempted suicide is a crime.  Although Hester’s husband Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale) was deeply hurt when she left him for his younger friend and refuses to grant her a divorce, he shows no indication of wishing to use her bid to end her life or his position as a judge to gain revenge.  

After being revived Hester lingers in a daze in her rented flat reflecting on the events that brought her to the point of preferring death to the pain of her unmatched fervency for Freddie.  She makes a desperate pitch to elicit the desired response she wants from him but is resigned to knowing she will always need him more.

As Hester tries to hold onto the ephemeral remains of what once existed in her relationships, THE DEEP BLUE SEA is lit so as to catch the dust in the air, the smoke from her cigarettes, and the breath on a chilly night.  While visible, those fleeting byproducts can never again return to what they were.  Florian Hoffmeister’s painterly cinematography wraps the film in a shroud.  What’s gone is gone, and Hester inhabits the wreckage of her choices just as Londoners get on with life among the destruction and ruins from World War II.  

Love becomes malignant when it is dampened or when it mutates into lust in writer-director Terence Davies’ adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play.  Per William’s mother (Barbara Jefford) extolling the virtues of guarded enthusiasm over passion, his affection for Hester is kept at a polite remove.  Hester requires ardor in her relationships, even if it is not reciprocated, and is willing to chuck comfortable but cool certainty with William for the heat of carnal attraction to Freddie.  
         
Hester is trapped between a rock and a hard place.  Neither William nor Freddie can supply or share the acute emotion that sustains her.  Weisz’s sensitive and finely modulated embodiment of yearning and torment speaks of the internal decay that has taken root in Hester.  The character is a victim of her own decisions, but Weisz’s bruised performance in THE DEEP BLUE SEA yields empathy for being battered by doomed romanticism.

Grade: B+

360

360 (Fernando Meirelles, 2011)

360 is predicated on the idea that everyone is connected in the circle of modern life, but the shape it calls to mind is the triangle in a pyramid scheme. Above the title on the poster are a lauded director, screenwriter, and international cast to serve as the lure. What appears to be a worthy investment of time and money yields nothing but the realization of being hoodwinked.

The drama opens in Vienna with a Slovakian woman getting her profile photographs taken for a website offering high-end prostitutes. Mirka (Lucia Siposová) is looking to earn a lot of money in a short period of time and has decided that this is the best way to do so. Although her bookworm sister Anna (Gabriela Marcinkova) disapproves, she still accompanies Mirka on the bus rides from Bratislava to the Austrian capital when work beckons. Mirka’s first client is supposed to be London businessman Michael Daly (Jude Law), but before he can approach her, a fellow salesman (Moritz Bleibtreu) points out the woman of ill repute in the hotel bar.

In Paris a 36-year-old Algerian widower (Jamel Debbouze) stalks a woman in a red beret. He’s smitten with her but doesn’t dare share his feelings because she is a married co-worker. While he knows how he must act, the lovestruck man speaks to a psychologist and his imam about the dilemma.

In London Michael’s wife Rose (Rachel Weisz) breaks off an affair with Brazilian photographer Rui (Juliano Cazarré), who then learns his girlfriend Laura (Maria Flor) was wise to him cheating on her. Laura chooses to return to their native country. On a leg of her trip going to Denver she befriends an older man (Anthony Hopkins). With nasty weather delaying all outbound flights, they intend to meet up for dinner. Also at the airport is Tyler (Ben Foster), a newly released sex offender bound for a halfway house in Louisville.

Hopkins’ character travels on to Phoenix and ends up at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. There Valentina (Dinara Drukarova), who has come from Paris to visit her sister, shares her story and begins the film’s path back to the city where the whole thing started.

Most of the vignettes in 360 might have made compelling features on their own if expanded. Except for the lousy, weirdly resolved sections with Law and Weisz, the scenes don’t flounder in miniature but feel incomplete. It’s as though notable plot-divulging portions have been plucked from other films and linked by director Fernando Meirelles and screenwriter Peter Morgan making like the insistent drive-thru order taker in DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? And then? And then? And then?

Even when 360 happens upon some strong moments, like Hopkins and Flor’s sweet interactions as strangers and the pay-off for him, they are mucked up by another thread spliced into the proceedings. Interrupting their time together for the struggles of Foster’s ex-convict suggests the possibility that he could be responsible for Hopkins’ lingering pain. Luckily 360 doesn’t fall victim to the all-caps irony that such a development like that would be. Unfortunately it converges Foster and Flor’s storylines in a most thoroughly unconvincing fashion.

As much as these tales of injured souls are bungled, 360 holds some interest because it posits that the road less traveled doesn’t necessarily lead to better destinations. Falling for someone new and taking a particular risk could be big mistakes. 360 doesn’t possess the conviction to follow through all the way on such an anti-romantic notion. At best Meirelles and Morgan soft sell it, but the flirtation with the idea is contrary to the norm.

According to 360 the world is united in broken dreams and wounded hearts. It’s too bad that playing R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” on a two-hour loop could have expressed the sentiment more effectively.

Grade: D+

Definitely, Maybe

DEFINITELY, MAYBE (Adam Brooks, 2008)

Dissatisfied at work and on the verge of divorce, Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) wonders how he ended up where life has brought him. In DEFINITELY, MAYBE he gets the opportunity to revisit his post-college path into adulthood when his daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) quizzes him about how he met her mother and why he doesn't love her now.

Will decides to spare Maya no details, including some a father probably ought to omit, as he tells her about the three primary women from his past. He changes the names so she can try to figure out which might be the one she calls mom.

The candidates include Emily (Elizabeth Banks), the college sweetheart Will leaves in Wisconsin when he goes to New York City to help with Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential campaign; Summer Hartley (Rachel Weisz), a journalist and acquaintance of Emily's; and April (Isla Fisher), an apolitical worker at campaign headquarters who becomes his best friend.

DEFINITELY, MAYBE'S framing device feels especially contrived since Maya knows her mom. The way she's spoken of in the present makes it sound as though she's been out of the picture for years. In theory Maya would be familiar enough with her parents' story or mother's history that this needlessly complicated recounting of Will's love life wouldn't have her guessing nearly as long as she does.

While the uncertainty of which woman Will marries is a nice change from the many predictable romantic comedies, the mystery gets stretched out a little beyond the point where it still holds interest. Will is a storyteller who doesn't know what parts are extraneous.

Yet it is the attention to the messy details in each of Will's relationships that serves as DEFINITELY, MAYBE'S strength. Romantic comedies can often be mindless sprints to the altar. This film gets entrenched in the mundane issues that test and frustrate people who may be good together if it weren't for different choices or circumstances.

Will and Emily might have been the perfect couple if he hadn't left her hundreds of miles behind. Will and Summer might have made great partners if professional interests didn't cause conflict. Will and April might have become more than wonderful friends if the timing of their availability wasn't so rotten. Love is seldom as easy as it appears in the movies. DEFINITELY, MAYBE does an admirable job of presenting the struggles inherent in finding the love of a lifetime.

I've found Reynolds insufferable in many of his other films, but here he dials down the smug self-assurance in exchange for confused idealism. He dives into politics with hope and energy only to be disappointed by his heroes. (The Clinton campaign can seem too visible in the film, but the former President's problems brought on by character flaws function as a barometer of Will's dashed expectations.) Personal life proves to be no easier to sort out.

Writer-director Adam Brooks smartly positions none of the women as villains. Emily, Summer, and April are appealing in their own ways. Banks has the most thinly written part of the the three. Weisz, an actress whose projected intelligence Hollywood sometimes treats as a liability, gives interesting shadings to a character whose independence and knowledge can get in the way of her own happiness. Bubbly and good-hearted, Fisher lights up the screen with with her energy and easygoing demeanor, yet by no means is she a pushover.

DEFINITELY, MAYBE stumbles along the way to its destination just like its protagonist does, but the humor and heart compensate for the lack of sure footing that extends all the way to the uncertainty in the title.

Grade: B-