337. On Chesil Beach; movie review

ON CHESIL BEACH
Cert 15
107 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong sex, sex references

Two Ian McEwan novels adapted to the big screen in the space of a few months and both boast superb performances by top actresses.
Here, Saoirse Ronan matches The Children Act's Emma Thompson in grabbing the audience with a combination of outward assurance against inner turmoil.
She plays Florence, a violinist from a well-to-do family who falls for Edward (Billy Howle), a fellow student whose family background is much less conventional.
It follows their love story before and after a whirlwind wedding, highlighting the stark difference between early love and the awkwardness of their first night as a married couple.
Key scenes of the movie are at the real Chesil Beach in Dorset from where McEwan had admitted that he had pocketed some stones and received a fine for his indiscretion on protected land.
It is there that Ronan and Howle are immersed in intense theatre-style verbal sword-fencing which hits home with its clipped savagery.

Before then, the movie is a relatively gentle 1960s drama with proprietary at its fore.
Ronan plays the kind, talented young woman who is seen by Edward's family a must-keep to the point that his dad tells him to 'marry that girl'.
She even manages to prompt an occasional awakening in Edward's brain-damaged and, consequently, eccentric mother (Anne-Marie Duff) who is intriguingly out of keeping with the primness.
However, darkness lurks and threatens what seems to be Florence and Edward's impenetrable bliss.
Dominic Cooke's film looks great from the windswept seaside scenes to the fine detail of its period.
Ronan and Howle have the type of courtly chemistry which was typical of the time.
However, their tentative relationship makes them ill-prepared for adulthood and makes me wonder how my mum and dad coped when they were married at just 19 and 20 back in 1959.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed On Chesil Beach far more than I expected and now I understand why a work acquaintance was so keen to see it.

Reasons to watch: A particularly spiky and yet endearing performance by Saoirse Ronan
Reasons to avoid: It might be a bit too clipped English past for some

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: Yes
Nudity: Yes
Overall rating: 8/10

Director quote - Dominic Cooke: " I loved the compassion inherent in this story about two young people struggling to connect in a world that has given them no such skills to do so. It's prior to the cultural revolution of the mid to late 1960s and I loved the depiction of that stuffy world. "

The big question - Why were people so repressed until the 1960s?

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