Review of The Deep Blue Sea, directed by Terence Davies

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

I ended up acquiring a Criterion subscription in order to try and nourish my brain in this way, and I have actually been watching a ton of movies on the Criterion Channel. I feel like I’m never going to get through the entirety of their catalogue in my life, especially considering I’m pretty broke to pay for this every single year—or at least right now.

I saw Rachel Weisz was on the poster for The Deep Blue Sea, which was honestly why I pressed play and decided to watch the movie. Sometimes it’s all about vibes, and on this day I wanted to watch this because I had finished up Vladimir and remembered how good she was in that movie.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in this introduction, as I know these can get a little long—and it’s not what you’re here for.

The wife of a prominent judge engages in a passionate affair, leading to some disastrous consequences in her life.

This movie takes place in the 1950s, which we can see from the pressure our young female protagonist feels. Her name is Hester Collyer, and, at the beginning of the movie, she has tried to kill herself. She’s the wife of a prominent judge in London high society, but as we see through flashbacks throughout the film, her life with him isn’t as rosy as we think.

The present moment is all about Hester’s recovery as we piece together what happened in the past. Unhappy with her marriage with the judge, William, who happens to be older than her, we see how she meets Freddie, a young pilot who served in World War II.

Freddie has his own demons because of his service, but his affair with Hester is quick and passionate. She sees a lot in him sexually, and the two go on a really passionate series of trysts. However, it exposes some faults with them. Hester starts feeling like she’s isolated from reality, while Freddie loses the adrenaline he once had in his life.

Hester’s marriage isn’t exactly terrible for her, but instead it leaves her emotionally dissatisfied in terms of the sex life. That’s why she was drawn to Freddie like a moth, but when the affair continues too long and she’s discovered by her husband, the consequences come down on her quickly.

She leaves her husband behind and moves into a flat with Freddie in London, which isn’t the same amount of luxury and stability she once had with her husband. Freddie will never probably make anywhere close to the same amount of money as her husband, leading to some tension there, but she ignores it in favor of their romantic chemistry.

Freddie is a bit of a loose cannon though, as she’ll discover, which is what leads to the present day. She comes to realize that Freddie might not give her what she fully wants in life, which is that financially stability, but she also wants the other side of the coin when it comes to her physical needs.

Overall Thoughts

I’ll have to admit, I had no idea what this movie was about really beyond the simple synopsis I read going into it, but I was pleasantly surprised. Do I find this groundbreaking? No, but I found the centering of Hester, a woman who essentially caused her own downfall (if we’re going to call it that) to be a compelling narrative.

We can’t help but to feel for Hester in some ways—I imagine most people, not in this situation specifically, have found themselves between a rock in a hard place. I think she made some poor decisions during all of this, especially considering how comfortable her life was before she began messing it up. I do understand her decision in the end though, even if it caused such a terrible outcome.

All of this is to say I want to think about this movie more beyond the review. It’s going to be one of those films that stick with me in the near future and that I’ll keep coming back to.

Go see it if it interests you!

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