On Chesil Beach - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

On Chesil Beach

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
Getting married is a stressful situation. I know of NO ONE who goes through the wedding preparations with a song lark on their shoulder and a skip in their step. It’s exciting, exhilarating, and you’re looking forward to life together, but you’re still absolutely stressed out of your gourd in the time leading up to that fateful day. It’s even worse (stress wise) when you’re young and completely inexperienced (those who have gone through the experience a second time have the benefit of having that exact thing...experience...to take the edge off). On Chesil Beach takes a close and intimate look at that day of conjoining, bringing us a darkly serious look on intimacy itself, the clashes that two people can have for the first time, and the results of hasty decisions based off of personal slight and injury when things go unequivocally wrong.

Edward (Billy Howle) and Florence (Saoirse Ronan) are head over heels in love with each other. Edward is a blue collar English worker who has just finished school, while Florence is a high class woman who is just finishing up her music degree. The two have JUST gotten married that very day, and they are spending their Honeymoon Chesil beach and nervously awaiting the night. Hands clenched, nerves at full raw potential, the two nervously profess their love for each other (over and over again in an amusing display of nervous tension), all the while the honeymoon sweet bed looms in the background. The film suddenly jolts back in time, allowing us to see just exactly HOW these two met and fell in love. As the story slides back and forth between past and present, writer (of both the book and the screenplay) Ian McEwan craftily tells a tale of ignorance and young love.

Edward is just head over heels for Florence, his entire family is enamored with the beautiful, and artistically inclined, girl as well. The two struggle at getting their two families to accept their young long, but eventually win in their fight, although it may come at a personal cost. With a dramatic twist in the last 3rd of the film the couple FINALLY are able to consummate their marriage (anyone who has ever been on a honeymoon will get a good chuckle out of that scene) only for things to go horribly wrong. She’s as tense as a board, and he’s an awkward kid who doesn’t know how to get her to relax (or even knows that she SHOULD need to be relaxed). It’s the perfect storm of embarrassment, humiliation, and anger at what seems like an epic fail. This leads to the inevitable fight on Chesil Beach itself, where Florence and Edward have an incredible row that will change their lives forever.

On Chesil Beach may seem like a movie about the infamous “wedding night” at first glance, but the truth is that this is only a staging arena for what the movie will become. In fact, this is a movie about intimacy and communication in general, and shoots far away from that hotel room for 90% of the movie. Both Ian McEwan careful molds the story through the two people’s eyes, as they stumble and crash through their romance with understandable awkwardness. Even the inevitable honeymoon itself is almost hilariously awkward if it wasn’t so deadly serious to real life. It’s the last act of the film where the fight happens that actually brings the ENTIRE film to a head though. This is where the two’s ignorance, stubbornness and harsh words come to an emotional and devastating conclusion.

The film is incredibly well acted and is home to probably two of my favorite performances of the year. Billy and Saoirse are both so visceral and REAL to the viewer that you can’t help but see real life in them. The two give a sort of gentle and emotionally draining performance that really resonates with the viewer, making their inevitable demise so much more painful. The story itself is poignant and heart wrenching, using real life scenarios and marital hangups to come to that conclusion. Up until the “post 1969” (when the film’s marriage takes place) era, the film is absolutely magnificent. However, Ian McEwan took some creative liberties from the book that sort of soften and cheapen what actually happened. Director Dominic Cooke infuses a few closing scenes to the film where we get to see what happens to Florence, and it kind of cheapens the emotional tragedy of the novel, which left Florence’s fate completely ambiguous. It was a tale of “what if?!” rather than wrapping it up neatly and depressingly at the end. It also paints Edward as a bit of a bully, making it seem like he was the stereotypical male who was just too angry at being denied his marital “rights”, and huffs off into the sunset, when in fact it was more of a tragedy in the book. Two young lovers who are so ignorant of how to communicate with each that when something goes embarrassingly wrong they cut strings when temperance and patience should have prevailed. The ending of the film had me a bit frustrated, not because it was a horrible ending, but just because the book did it SOO much better.




Rating:

Rated R for some sexual content and nudity




Video:

I nearly squealed in glee when I saw that Dominic Cooke was using 35mm film as his source, and no matter how good digital can look, it just doesn’t have the texturing and beauty that actual film stock provides. I have no idea what resolution the master was struck at, but the 1080p Blu-ray is simply PERFECT in ever way. The English countryside is so lovely to look at, with brightly saturated greens, earthy browns, and soft pastels for the little houses. The inner city is more stone gray, with deep mahogany wood structures, and the dim lighting of a college study house. Blacks are deep and inky without fear of crush or milky white creeping in, and the contrast levels are simply maginficent. Faces are beautifully detailed, showing us every little bit of acne, 5 O’clock shadow, and soft curve of a beautiful woman’s face. Even the grain layer is soft and unobtrusive to the eye, evenly layered and full of rich detail. Simply put, this has become one of my favorite encodes of the year, as it really showcases just how beautiful and natural looking film stock is.





Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track for On Chesil Beach is a fairly unassuming and simplistic track. This is a dramatic film that focuses the main emphasis on dialog and some ambient score placement in the sound stage as the majority of the audio. Dialog is still perfectly clear and clean, evenly balanced with the soft score, and unassumingly detailed. The score is probably the richest and most nuanced bits of the film, but there are some really neat background sounds in the surrounds. Such as the soft lapping sounds of water along the beach, or the rumbling and background vocals of people talking in a crowded collegiate hall. LFE is mild but present, underscoring the score, as well as adding a bit of a punch to doors slamming, or the orchestra near the very end The 5.1 mix doesn't really stretch the abilities of the format, but it is well done and does everything required of it without problem.






Extras:

• The Story Behind On Chesil Beach - Featurette
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

On Chesil Beach is a powerfully poignant film that details some of the intricacies and pitfalls that await a newly married couple. There are moments of hilarity punctuated by a deep sense of seriousness and misfortune that await the young lover’s tale. Ian McEwan’s story is very close to the novel from whence it came, but it suffers from a few missteps in the final act that undermine the actual message that the novel was trying to convey, in my opinion. The story is sweet and palatable for just about anyone who has ever been married, and works on many levels. The few missteps in the film are easily over looked, and it makes for an enjoyable watch. Universal has given us a STUNNING Blu-ray with perfect video and great sound. My only complaint on the technical end is the sad lack of any real extras outside of a featurette and some deleted scenes. Worth a solid watch.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emily Watson, Anne-Marie Duff
Directed by: Dominic Cooke
Written by: Ian McEwan (Novel AND Screenplay)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Studio: Universal
Rated: R
Runtime: 110 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 7th, 2018

Image

• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Good Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will check this out once available on Amazon prime/netflix.