Love in the Time Before Antidepressants

Movies: The Deep Blue Sea

The last thing you want in a movie about a forbidden love affair is for that affair to lack mutual passion. The second to last thing you want in a movie about a forbidden love affair is for your main characters to be unsympathetic, cruel, and weak. Terrance Davies' The Deep Blue Sea unfortunately hits both of these benchmarks.

The Deep Blue Sea takes place in post-WWII England. Rachel Weisz plays Hester, a glamorous woman married to a much older man. Hester becomes involved with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), a young, handsome Royal Air Force pilot whose glory days are behind him and who now spends his time playing golf and carousing in bars.


Unlike in Brief Encounter and The End of the Affair--two other tales of extramarital affairs in post-WWII Britain--The Deep Blue Sea's lovers are very mismatched emotionally. Hester is obsessed with Freddie in a self-destructive way, whereas Freddie is just having a bit of fun. Normally, one would sympathize with Hester, who is potentially throwing more away by shacking up with Freddie and is in a position of weakness and vulnerability in both her marriage and her affair. But Hester, who is suicidal (no spoiler here--her suicide attempt takes place in the first scene of the movie), is difficult to sympathize with. She looks to Freddie, a man she knows will never love her as she loves him, to fill a gaping void in her life. She turns to melodrama in order to get Freddie's attention, which pushes him away all the more. She is dismissive of her husband who, although older than her and bit of a bore, seems like a decent man.

One could argue that this isn't a film about a love affair at all, but about the lack of choices people (women especially) had in 1950's England. Reputations mattered back then in a way they do not matter now. If Hester had been born a few decades later, she could fill the void in her life with work, travel, sex, etc. Another option Hester would have if she were a 21st century woman is modern medicine. It's hard not to look at Hester's depression and suicide attempts through a modern lens: some Zoloft and talk therapy would do wonders for this woman.

But this is the 1950's and Hester must find other ways to alleviate the hollowness in her soul. Unfortunately, she picks a cad and clings to him for dear life. And of course, he has no interest in playing her savior.

The Deep Blue Sea has some powerful moments--namely, a flashback to a group of Londoners crowded together in a subway station while bombs blast away outside. One man sings a traditional song, "Molly Malone", in a beautiful voice, as the camera scans the scared faces of all the strangers who have come together in the face of violence and war. That 5 minute scene contains more beauty and emotion than the rest of the film put together. The Deep Blue Sea has the potential to be a melancholy meditation of adultery; instead it was a very slow and boring film with characters I didn't care about or actively disliked.

2.5 out of 5 stars