Movie Review: '45 Years'
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio 1060
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- She's been doing strong work in parts big and small on movie screens for about 50 years.
And yet her latest starring role, in 45 Years, is the first for which British actress Charlotte Rampling has been acknowledged by the industry, with an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
This for a star who has made indelible contributions to such films as Georgy Girl; The Night Porter; Stardust Memories; Zardoz; The Damned; Farewell, My Lovely; The Verdict; Under the Sand; Swimming Pool; and nearly a hundred other movies.
In the marital drama, 45 Years, Rampling plays Kate Mercer, a former schoolteacher who has been married for nearly half a century to factory manager Geoff, played by Tom Courtenay, a two-time Oscar nominee himself for Doctor Zhivago and The Dresser.
With a 45th-anniversary celebration a few days away for the aging, childless, retired couple, Geoff receives a letter with startling news.
The corpse of the German woman he was in love with a half-century ago has been discovered, frozen and perfectly preserved in an icy glacier in the Swiss Alps, where she had been lost in an accident during a hiking expedition.
Despite the fact that this occurred before the Mercers even met, the jealousy consumes Kate, who now questions everything about their relationship.
Why has Geoff hardly ever even referred to this prior relationship and the way that it ended, she wonders, and in what way is that relationship related to this one? Was that the love of his life and was she merely settled for because of timing? And how can she possibly compete at this point with an idealized, forever-young woman?
Although the world around Kate sees her as the same steady presence she has always been, and she and Geoff go about their mundane business in rural Norfolk in the usual way, this new wrinkle in their history is all she can think about. Consequently, the tension between them is palpable.
And the major revelation still to come will not make things any easier as they reassess their union and attempt to reestablish their romantic equilibrium.
Director Andrew Haigh (Weekend), working from his own adaptation of a 2005 short story by David Constantine called In Another Country, midwifes this subtle, nuanced piece by letting the drama emerge naturally from the seemingly mundane.
And although Courtenay shines with perfectly natural understatement, the director concentrates on Rampling's expressive face, on which the quiet, intimate piece plays out in capital letters.
So is their marriage on the rocks? Should she feel betrayed? After all these years together, do these spouses turn out to be strangers to each other? And what exactly does that lingering final shot suggest?
You just might argue about all that on the way home from this delicate, superbly acted drama.
So we'll celebrate 3 stars out of 4 for 45 Years, an insightful look at the fragile marital bond that stays with you long after the anniversary party is over.
