A married couple preparing to celebrate their wedding anniversary receive shattering news that promises to forever change the course of their lives.
Director: Andrew Haigh
Writers: David Constantine (short story), Andrew Haigh (adaptation)
Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James
Storyline
A married couple preparing to celebrate their wedding anniversary receive shattering news that promises to forever change the course of their lives.
Reviews
Kate and Geoff live a quite and seemingly normal life in the country until Geoff receives a letter informing him that the body an old girlfriend, whom he travelled through Switzerland with, but was lost in climbing accident, has been found preserved in a glacier of ice. This happened before he met Charlotte Rampling's Kate, who immediately raises her eyebrows at the clarity in which Geoff, played by Tom Courtenay, recalls his time in the Swiss Alps. She's more concerned with arranging the party for her anniversary than digging up the past, but that's what spurs Geoff into life, as he picks up old habits and develops a fascination with his loft. In stark contrast, suspicion and jealously soon begins to grow in Kate, who feels pushed aside in favour of someone she didn't even know.
In some ways, 45 Years is shot like a mystery or a crime film, with the days chartered appropriately in this regard, although there's an overwhelming feeling of Gothic horror abound, but without the Gothic overtones. It's set in the Norfolk Broads, after all, but Kate and Geoff's country cottage could be the house of Usher given the secrets that lie beneath. The performances are exemplary, of course, whilst the staging and framing is that of a director at the top of his game. Both visually and with regards to the diegetic soundtrack that tells the story of this couple's life. But how much of that was defined by Geoff's dead girlfriend? The film's parting shot is genuinely brilliant, with the camera focusing on Kate much in the same way it stayed on Bob Hoskins at the end of The Long Good Friday, or George Clooney in Michael Clayton, challenging audiences to stare into the mind of a character and draw our own conclusions.
In some ways, 45 Years is shot like a mystery or a crime film, with the days chartered appropriately in this regard, although there's an overwhelming feeling of Gothic horror abound, but without the Gothic overtones. It's set in the Norfolk Broads, after all, but Kate and Geoff's country cottage could be the house of Usher given the secrets that lie beneath. The performances are exemplary, of course, whilst the staging and framing is that of a director at the top of his game. Both visually and with regards to the diegetic soundtrack that tells the story of this couple's life. But how much of that was defined by Geoff's dead girlfriend? The film's parting shot is genuinely brilliant, with the camera focusing on Kate much in the same way it stayed on Bob Hoskins at the end of The Long Good Friday, or George Clooney in Michael Clayton, challenging audiences to stare into the mind of a character and draw our own conclusions.
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