On Chesil Beach
4 stars
Director: Dominic Cooke
Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Emily Watson, Billy Howle
Duration: 110 mins
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd
The supremely talented Saiorse Ronan made her breakthrough appearance in the 2007 adaptation of novelist Ian McEwan’s sublime novel Atonement. Ronan reteams with the author in the big-screen version of his novella On Chesil Beach, which he himself adapted for the big screen, directed by Dominic Cooke.
The setting is the titular beach in Dorset, a stretch of pebbled coastline sitting against a backdrop of blue/grey sky in the summer of 1962. Britain is on the cusp of the major social changes that would come to define the swinging 60s. Yet, at this moment, it is still a society of stiff upper lips and polite mores.
Ronan is Florence, who we first meet merely hours after her marriage to Edward (Billy Howle). The young couple are beginning their honeymoon, in a staid and quiet hotel.
They are both unmistakeably nervous about their impending first physical encounter and, as they negotiate the palpable tension between them, the couple flash back to their earlier lives unaware of the trials that lie ahead.
Both young actors make you care deeply for these characters
On Chesil Beach is an elegantly nuanced tale of two people very much in love, living at a time when sex was still shrouded in mystery and communication about feelings was difficult. Yet, the chemistry between Ronan and Howle is so strong, their performances so subtle, that their body language and meaningful glances at one another say as much about their relationship as McEwan’s dialogue. There isno doubt they are meant for one another.
The film charts the couple’s courtship from the moment they meet at a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament event. They get to know one another via picnics, cricket, books and music. All this is captured with warmth and authenticity by director Cooke.
We learn much about their lives and their hopes and ambitions. He hopes to be a historian. She is an accomplished violinist hoping to get a string quartet off the ground. Their respective families also play an important part in their lives. Florence’s aloof father (Samuel West) and her rather snobbish mother (Emily Watson) disapprove slightly of the lower-class Edward.
Edward’s cosy family, who rally around his brain-damaged mother (played with poignance by Anne-Marie Duff), welcome Florence with open arms – “Marry this girl!” orders Edward’s father on first meeting her.
Which he does. Yet, so perfectly matched are they that the amount of distress their wedding night causes comes as a surprise – to them as much as to us. Edward is keen, if fumbling. Yet, Florence despite her open-mindedness and curiosity about the changing is completely appalled at the idea of sexual intimacy. Her disgust, a few weeks prior, as she reads a book about the whole act makes for some comical moments.
Yet, the comedy fades significantly as the realisation sets in that her repulsion grows from something much deeper. That something is never directly addressed (and, having looked up the book it appears that neither is it tackled in the book, and McEwan himself explains he leaves it up the reader). Which is acceptable. Yet, what I found frustrating is the outcome (and I can’t say more without giving it away) which pretty much negates what has gone before. The bittersweet final scene seems like an afterthought.
That I felt so hard done by was also down to the fact that I was completely and utterly emotionally engaged with the characters and their journey. Ronan has an effortless ability to fully inhabit every character she plays. In Florence, she embodies the full spirit of a young woman who is sophisticated, independent and highly intelligent, yet fully unprepared for what awaits her.
Howle matches her in terms of commitment to the role and in projecting Edward’s anxieties. Both young actors make you care deeply for these characters, which makes their fate that much harder to accept, leaving a rather bitter taste in the mouth… and leaving the film one star short of the full five.