What a waste of my time!!!

the audience applauded

Brilliant and touching

A Brilliant Conflict

My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library.It has a British "period piece" feel although the period is 1962. Two new college graduates from different backgrounds, which was still a big deal in 1960s England, get married. She is Saoirse Ronan as Florence Ponting, violinist and leader of a string quartet. He is Billy Howle as Edward Mayhew, much less refined and often confused by his role in the world.The movie starts with the two of them in their hotel room, about to spend their first night together, figuratively and literally, and much of the backstory is told in a series of flashbacks. The movie is based on a popular book, and the author also became the scriptwriter for the movie, which is a nice touch. It moves a bit deliberately at times but we found the movie very worthwhile. It plays on a theme that certain moments in life create crossroads and the decisions we make each time can have a great and lasting effect on the rest of our lives.

10 years after ATONEMENT, Saoirse Roman reunites with author Ian McEwan in ON CHESIL BEACH, adapted by McEwan himself from his novella onto the silver screen, it is theater-hand Dominic Cooke's directorial debut feature.The film begins in 1962, in medias res, two just-married honeymooners Edward Mayhew (Howle) and Florence Ponting (Roman) swan along the titular beach, heading to the hotel while waxing lyrical about music, they are supposed to enjoy a romantic dinner and consummate their wedding night, only, the ensuing clumsily conducted whoopee-making turns out disastrously for these two first-timers, and their 6-hour marriage will come to a precipitous halt on the same beach. Woven felicitously into the diegesis are discrete flashbacks representing the pair's past, their familial backstory, the evolution of their romance, and their genuine communion up to the point, often cued by one specific emotion or reminiscences and chaperoned by lilting Bach-heavy classical pieces, which are definitely bespoke of the film's fluent if inauspicious mood all for one's ears' pleasure. At first glance, Edward and Florence is a brace of natural match, although he is hailed from a less affluent background, saddled with a brain-damaged mother Marjorie (Duff, persuasively rotates between two disparate frequencies with utter aplomb), whereas she is endowed with a bourgeois upbringing, leading a quintet as the first violinist, their love story blossoms with sufficient fondness and alacrity which elicits a consensus that they do love each other, it is not a "she's not that into you" scenario. So the sticking point eventually is leveled at Florence's ostensible frigidity (although a potential skeleton in the closet is implicitly hinted with a young Florence sniveling under the looming shadow of her father, which signifies it may be more traumatic than congenital), aggravated by a deficiency of sex education on both parties, statistically speaking, everyone's first sex experience is, more often than not, a disappointment, but what adds insult to injury is Florence's shocking reaction and a hearty but inopportune suggestion that provokes an embarrassed Edward to rage-quit, whose immaturity even overshadows his oceanic maladroitness, in hindsight, it is beggar-belief that true love could be thwarted by such a commonplace incident, but as always, it is no use crying over split milk, for a spur-of-the-moment decision, Edward is punished on the pain of ruing the day for the rest of his life, especially when decades later he gets the tidings and fulfills his promise to see the quintet's homecoming performance, what a price to pay and what hits home is the sharp contrast between a man's idée-fixe and a woman's malleability, which points up McEwan's incisiveness. The two leads, being a bigger name and a thrice Oscar-nominee, Ronan continues her amazing career transition of seeking out more complex roles offered to actresses in our equality-demanding era, and her Florence boldly melds a girl-next-door affinity with a modicum of resolution and domination that defies easy categorization. However, for this reviewer's money, a tenderfoot Billy Howle outdoes Ronan here, completely sloughs off his loosey-goosey appearance (which looks rather old for his character prima facie), and sets in motion Edward's multiplex make-up with conviction, sympathy and finesse (including one of the most awkward sex scenes in recent cinema-scape) and elicits a delectable charm that reverberates hither and thither, absolutely a star-making performance that beckons more meaty roles.A pleasurable period drama that analyzes an edifying mishap with moderation and deliberation, ON CHESIL BEACH might not possess ATONEMENT's epic grandeur or stellar opulence, but in its cottage-industry approach, effectually carries off its wisdom and discretion.

Here we have "On Chesil Beach", set in the middle of the 20th century for the most part, briefly after WWII, and this is probably my new second favorite movie with the imdb release year 2017. Director is Dominic Cooke and these 110 minutes are his first full feature movie I believe. The writer is Ian McEwan who has written the bases for many many movies in the last decades, the most known probably Atonement over a decade ago. For this one here, he adapted his own novel and looking at the script and story here, this may have been a really wise choice. It is that good. Sure it helps to have an actress like Saoirse Ronan on board who may very well be the by far most talented performer from her age group by now. 3 Oscar nominations before the age of 25 says it all and hopefully that win is only a matter of time. But lets take a look at this film here. The first 75-80 minutes, it is a decent watch, a convincing period piece with no major weaknesses that may not fly by, but also never drags by any means. Several interesting subjects are dealt with like social differences between lovers, unrequited love , struggling parent-children relationships, first love, marriage (or the desire to get married), anger management, inexperience when it comes to dealing with the other sex, aspiring music careers and more. It's all okay at this point, but nothing stands out too much. So I prefer to focus more on the lastg hour in my review, namely the moment when we have the two protagonists meet on Chesil Beach as newly-weds and we find out about their struggles that result from their unfulfilling wedding night. His accusations that she left him standing there humiliated. Her proposal to live together as a couple for everybody to see, but not to pursue a sexual relationship at all. Heavy material really, ot was a different time. Today of course we can say they were both very young, especially the girl and that her perception and her longings and desires in that area may very well change at some point in the near future and that it should not be seen like that as if it is something finite really. Or is it? Maybe he could not have approached her from that perspective every again and he must have hoped for her to take steps accordingly. I don't think it is a case of her not loving him, they did love each other, but their problem was probably his temper and his ego as well, his fear of being a failure as well as her insecurities that probably did not help matters at all, even if in theory they should have.Then we have 2 big jumps in time afterward: the first takes us 20 years later, maybe more into the 1970s and we see the male protagonist considerably older now, leading a hippie life with several sex partners it seems, so clearly more secure in that area now and when he tells the story about his past, without mentioning himself, we find out how much he still longs for the girl from his younger years and maybe how much he regrets already not sticking with her. There is that crucial scene with a young girl at the man's record store. We find out she is the female protagonist's daughter thanks to the inclusion of many smart and qually touching references about Chuck Berry (that shows us how she kept longing for him), the name of her little orchestra and eventually the girl carrying the beautiful name Chloe. I found this scene especially heartbreaking as we see that Ronan's character developed sexually obviously away from her initial fears and struggles and even became a mother who was probably leading a fairly normal life when it comes to physical attraction and performance in the bedroom. You could see how it broke his heart to find out about that. And that at the same time, had she stayed with him back then, or he with her, this little girl never would have existed. And the second jump in time is even further taking us deep into the 21st century when both are old now. We have him visit the final concert by her and her band, something that was referenced many times before in the movie how he will see her and how it will be special, only with the difference that in these plans they are both still loving couples, but eventually it was as if their marriage never existed. And when we found out who became the father of her children, it is especially heartbreaking as this man was not one she showed much interest in when meeting the male central character earlier. When we see him burst into tears in the audience, it is not really possible to not join him in the theater you are sitting and experiencing this truly sad and depressing turn of events. I think pretty much everybody was crying in the showing I was in, inclusding myself obviously and when I was outside again seeing people leave the theater with wet eyes still gave me a feeling of warmth really. They may be strangers, but that did not keep us from feeling the same. What else is there to say. I think my perfect rating says it all. It is only a 7 probably before the last 30 minutes, but then it all goes north so quickly and so unstoppably that I cannot do anything other than giving it a perfect 10/10 here. For me personally, I somehow always felt that there would not be a happy ending in store for the two eventually and that's perfectly fine because it did feel realistic. Billy Howle is of course not as good as Ronan for the most part, but that is fine because pretty much nobody his age is these days. he still holds himself pretty well I must say. Might be a good career in store for him too in the next couple years. Overall, this is a must-see, preferrably with your significant other. It also will make you think a lot about life I hope and about how all decisions have consequences, many of them very crucial ones and it's important to make the right ones as much as you can, so you won't get in a situation like our (perhaps eventually fairly lonely) male protagonist here to regret what he did in terms of life and love. A good film that closes in on perfection towards the end. You will be moved and brought to tears if you're not dead inside. Highly highly recommended, also to males who can perhaps even form a stronger connection with the tragedy towards the end because of whom it happens to. Do not miss out.

On Chesil Beach (2017) was directed by Dominic Cooke. The screenplay was written by Ian McEwan, who wrote the novel on which the film was based. Saoirse Ronan plays Florence Ponting, a brilliant young musician. Billy Howle portrays Edward Mayhew, a young man who falls in love with Florence. They are both caring, sensitive people, and the marriage could have--and should have--worked.The fact that it didn't work can be blamed on the sexual inexperience of both Florence and Edward, and on some very bad decisions each of them makes on their wedding night.Saoirse Ronan is a fine actor, and so is Billy Howle. They appear to have a real chemistry between them, and it's a pleasure to watch them act together. The first two thirds of the film worked for me. Unfortunately, the final third--the dénouement--was weaker than the other two. The imperfect ending lessened some of the film's impact.On Chesil Beach has a bad 6.4 IMDb rating. It's much better than that. I highly recommend the movie. We saw it on the screen of Rochester's excellent Little Theatre. It was work almost as well on the small screen.