On Chesil Beach (2017)

I love Saoirse Ronan so much, just like everyone else in the universe should. She's a supremely talented actress and I knew I had to see this film as soon as I could. On Chesil Beach is a film made by a first time director in Dominic Cooke. The film also reunites Billy Howle and Ronan, after starring in The Seagull (which came out a week ago as it is). So Saoirse Ronan month continues and On Chesil Beach was definitely enjoyable. The film is a little different than I expected but is a satisfying experience.

The film is about two young people who get married and are anxious about consummating for the very first time. It turns out having sexual intercourse has really big implications on their present relationship and what their future holds for them as well. The film utilizes flashbacks within present time and then flashes to the future so that we can see the two leads in different times of their life and how their lives coincide at each step.

Saoirse Ronan is typically fantastic in this. She's such a talent in everything she's in and her raw emotion and hesitation in committing to a physical relationship is portrayed with a delicate confidence. The film is sharply written, although it falters a few steps of the way. Its a different type of story focused on a physical experience that usually doesn't matter to this extent in other films. The film's last twenty minutes are really well done and bring the picture together. We've all kind of been there with the first time so its easy to relate and know the nervousness involved by both parties.

The cinematography is fantastic, especially when it comes to life on the extended scene at the beach. Costumes design and set design are also up to par. The film presents itself with grace and poise. The film will make a name out of Billy Howle and Dominic Cooke. Cooke seems like an experienced filmmaker and he can only grow from here. I will obviously continue to follow Saoirse's films like a lost puppy in the hopes that she is finally rewarded with an Academy Award.

7/10

Fmovies: "On Chesil Beach" (R, 1:50) is a drama from first-time feature film director Dominic Cooke (known mainly for helming TV's "The Hallow Crown" and "National Theater Live: A Comedy of Errors"). The screenplay is by British writer Ian McEwan, adapting his own 2007 novella of the same name. The film stars multiple Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle - and was released one week after another literary adaptation, "The Seagull", in which the same two actors played young Russian lovers. This story follows two young Brits as they meet, fall in love and get married, focusing mainly on the wedding night.

Florence Pointing and Edward Mayhew have just been married and have arrived at a hotel at the titular beach for their honeymoon. Through an uncomfortable dinner in their room and awkward fumblings with their clothes, it becomes painfully clear that they are equally inexperienced and nervous regarding sex. As the evening slowly progresses, we see flashbacks of how their romance developed, with hints at what makes the prospect of sleeping together so uncomfortable for them - especially Florence. When things come to a head, the young marrieds have a seaside conservation which reveals much about who they are (and the era in which they live) and has very important consequences for the rest of their lives.

"On Chesil Beach" is one of the most layered and most profound movies you are likely to see in 2018. Woven in with the development of the romance, the developments on the wedding night and the repercussions of all of it are themes of sexual repression, gender roles, class differences, pride, regret, communication, forgiveness and, of course, love and marriage. Some will say that not much happens in this film, but there is still a whole lot happenING. And through it all, the considerable acting chops of the two leads (bolstered by solid performances from multiple Oscar nominee Emily Watson, Anne-Marie Duff, Samuel West, Adrian Scarborough and Bebe Cave) make the characters exceedingly sympathetic and relevant. This is a very well-done film without much action, but with plenty to show all of us. "A-"

On Chesil Beach: The film opens with Florence (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle) strolling along the eponymous beach, they have just been married that day. Returning to their hotel room a pair of piss taking waiters insist on hanging around serving the silver service meal. This adds to the couples nervousness as both seem to be inexperienced sexually which apparently wasn't unusual for university graduates in the UK in 1962.

There then follows a series of flashbacks, not in chronological order, as the attempt to consummate the marriage continues. They first met at a CND meeting in Oxford, Edward wandered in literally by accident but it was love at first sight. Not at all corny, you can literally see Cupid's Arrows crossing the room. Florence offers Edward a booklet on the likely results of a H-Bomb hitting Oxford, Edward says it sounds like a good idea.

Florence has a first in Music from Oxford, Edward's first is in History from UCL This makes Florence's mother Violet (Emily Watson) wonder if his parents are from a tradesman background and her factory owner father Geoffrey (Samuel West) is equally snobby albeit in a more restrained manner. Edward's father Lionel (Adrian Scarborough) is an engineer and his mother Marjorie (Anne-Marie Duff) is an artist but suffers from an acquired brain injury and is prone to acting unpredictably.

There is some good acting especially by Anne-Marie Duff but the thespians are hampered by a screenplay which hasn't been fully translated from novel to film, even though novelist Ian McEwan has written the adaptation. The chopped up nature of the flashbacks in this instance also hamper the development of a coherent narrative. This is still a touching story of love blighted by inexperience with some dark secrets also implied in the background. 7/10.

On Chesil Beach fmovies. This movie was a particular disappointment as Saoirse put in another wonderful performance and the co-star Billy Howle was also good. It is a coming-of-age movie with the awkwardness of the two parties being central. But unfortunately the scenes of their awkwardness go on forever and the quite nice music in the background, rather than making it more important, just seems to be pushing it. This movie needed a lot more substance or a lot sharper editing ... or maybe a different director. Maybe the moral is that the author (here Ian McEwan, whose work I like a lot) shouldn't be allowed to write the screenplay. Not an unpleasant way to spend a couple of hours, but I really hope that Saoirse takes on meatier roles.

"Little lamb, Here I am; Come and lick My white neck; Let me pull Your soft wool; Let me kiss Your soft face; Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year." William Blake, from Songs of Innocence Set in 1962, On Chesil Beach is far from 1963 Beach Party with Frankie Avalon and other pre sexual revolution aquatic shenanigans. Chesil is a tightly-wound story of a young Brit couple, Florence (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle), just married and beyond awkward on the wedding night: dangerously innocent. It's not a comedy, for most of the film is framed by their uncertain movements as he tries to loosen her up (a major challenge) and she tries to get in the mood. Based on a novel and screenplay by the great Ian McEwan, this dramatic romance crystallizes the damaging innocence of the times and the dire need for experience. While 21st-century easy hookup time is not ideal, the danger of being clueless about the power of sex and its mandates is palpable in this star-crossed story. Florence, an upper-middle class musician with a fledgling quartet, is both the scourge of Edward's hopes to be a successful husband and the hope for their love that tries to transcend sexuality. Mozart laces throughout to elevate Darwinian love making, reminding of the ethereal heights to which art can elevate love. Yes, it's a beautifully melancholic romance whose future is endangered by present repressive times, a legacy those of us know well who were taught about the opposite sex by tyrannical and ignorant clericals, who had never been married and were usually virgins. So much is set on the beach with flashbacks to help us understand the demons that it is easy to see the future through the repression of the present. Much of the movie moves through the awkward attempt at first sex, pristine by contemporary standards. Yet, that discomfort is necessary to understand the uncompromising fate of the couple and the tears that will inevitably come. Regardless of where anyone is now, this powerful love story reminds of how deeply we are indebted to sex and how treating it casually or ignorantly inevitably leads to lives of desperation. Although at times On Chesil beach echoes the delicacy of love in Call Me By Your Name and at others by the talk of Richard Linklater's Before series, this romance evokes the innocence of first love and the ruthlessness of experience. Beautifully photographed by Sean Bobbitt, Chesil still owes most of its greatness to Dominic Cooke's direction, where the harshness of failed expectations is tempered by a love that transcends, but cannot denounce, sex. "Break this heavy chain, That does freeze my bones around! Selfish, vain, Eternal bane, That free love with bondage bound." Blake, Songs of Experience

Saw this at the London Film Festival. Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle enter the perilous territory of marriage in a slow, sleek coming-of-age story adapted from Ian McEwan's 2007 novel. I found the cinematography to be superb, the play of colours very well done in accordance to the mood. I wish there had been more development near the end, but the film was sufficiently beguiling to give it a 7/10.