There is absolutely one thing that must be understood before undertaking the experience that is witnessing Saoirse Ronan’s latest, On Chesil Beach.
It moves slowly. That is not a bad thing.
The film, in fact, feels much like a stage play when it is just Ronan and her stellar co-star, Billy Howle, having one-on-one scenes. Then the story employs flashbacks where we meet the couple and learn about the idyllic romance who are on their honeymoon night at an inn at the titular locale in the present.
It is all leading up to something, and if you have the patience for it, which I recommend you find, the payoff in the final 20 minutes is nothing short of a mesmerizing and tragic look at life choices and the various roads of the past that led us to our future.
Ronan is Florence, a college student who comes from an upper crust family. She is passionate about her music as the leader of a string quintet that has immense promise and extraordinary gifts at bringing the classics to life in vibrant musical menagerie. She meets Edward (Billy Howle) when he wanders into an anti-nuclear weapon group meetup that is just one of her lofty passions. He simply wants to tell someone who cares that he aced his university tests and is on his way to being an academic with a passion for history.
Edward comes from a working class family who has had its share of challenges, all handled with that stoic British way of managing through troubled times. His mother has brain damage and his twin sisters are too young to care about his studious triumphs. What’s a guy to do? He hops on a bus, goes to a nearby big(ger) city to down some pints and seeks someone to share his good news. He finds Florence and the two immediately strike up a relationship that is nothing but charmed. They even describe it as love at first sight, at least in hindsight.
As On Chesil Beach crisscrosses from the honeymoon night at the seaside inn to their past, slowly it is revealed that each brings their own hindered emotional and immature baggage to their marriage, something that will make what is supposed to be the most blissful of nights challenging at the least and staggeringly life changing at the most.
Howle and Ronan are sublime. Even though the material given to them moves at a snail’s pace, the two manage to grab the viewers attention enough that we stay along for the ride. It is going somewhere, and the result is an explosive episode of emotive power. Each actor crafts a character that is nuanced in their eccentricities and nativity. They come together as two souls that are clearly in love, but not ones who are equipped with the maturity or life experience to navigate the challenges their diverse pasts present them. After all, this is Britain circa 1962. Their own mental hindrances do not help things either.
Yet, these are two kids in love and there is an unspoken belief that their honeymoon stumbles will be merely a drop in the bucket of life.
Ian McEwan adapted his beloved book for the big screen and it is easy to see that his passion for these characters and this tale is on every frame. There are noted things left out from the book that probably would have helped the audience to understand the goings-on throughout this fateful honeymoon evening. But, that omission is not anything that hinders the cinematic experience that is On Chesil Beach. McEwan has crafted characters that are firmly entrenched in early 60s Britain with its still firm class differences that separated so many from an understanding of each other.
Director Dominic Cooke makes a big screen debut that is handled decently, given the material he is given that does not exactly require much of a helmer in terms of camera work or technical elements. Where Cooke excels is with his actors. His experience on the stage is ever-present and custom-fit for this particular project.
From her stunning announcement in Atonement, and then Hanna, there is nothing Ronan has done since that this writer would not be front and center for to bask in her talent. Hearing her name attached to this film was all we needed to witness it. She is truly something else and wields her gifts so effervescently in everything she does, especially here where it is her understated turn that is the biggest takeaway from her latest solid performance.
But what is so fascinating is that it is not her, it is her co-star Howle, who brings the mettle in the film’s final 20 minutes that makes On Chesil Beach so resonant.
Grade: B