45 Years

Andrew Haigh wrote and directed one of my favorite films of the century so far, Weekend, and his 2015 movie 45 Years is based on David Constantine's breathtaking short story "In Another Country" — as rich and perfect a story as you're ever likely to read.

For these reasons, I put off seeing the movie for a long time, because I feared it could not live up to my hopes and expectations for it.

And no, it couldn't live up to my hopes and expectations, and my hopes and expectations did, indeed, get in the way — but it's still an impressive film. In particular, the performances and the cinematography are magnificent.

The plot of 45 Years is simple, and starts right from the second scene: An older couple, Kate and Geoff, are getting ready to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary, having not been able to celebrate their 40th because of Geoff's heart bypass surgery. That week, Geoff receives an official letter letting him know that a body has been found encased in a melting glacier: the body of Katya, his girlfriend before he met Kate. He and Katya were hiking in Switzerland in 1962 when Katya fell into a crevasse. Kate knew this story, but hasn't thought about it in many years. Geoff explains to Kate that to make their traveling easier, he and Katya had told people they were married, and thus he was the next of kin, a detail Kate claims she never knew. The rest of the film is about the tension that then enters Kate and Geoff's relationship because of this new knowledge. Geoff can't stop obsessing about his past with Katya, and Kate is somehow deeply threatened and hurt by it all.

The problem I encountered after a first viewing of 45 Years was that I just didn't buy the premise. This is strange, because it's the same premise as the short story. But Constantine's emphases are rather different from those of the movie — his concern in the story, and in much of his writing, is at least as much with the passing of time and the power of memory as it is in the characters' relationship. The ending is entirely different (very powerful, very sad).

Double Feature: Beginners & Weekend

Without any conscious decision to do so, I ended up watching two movies this week that make an excellent pair: Beginners and Weekend. Both have a lot to say about repression, shame, sex, and families, but they do so with a generally light touch. Beginners is the more comic of the two films, though its real triumph is its balance of humor and heartbreak, while Weekend is more subdued — a little bit verit矇, a little bit mumblecore — and far less likely than Beginners to attract Oscar votes or general viewers, which is a shame, because it's better than almost everything that will be nominated for all the awards.

Beginners is writer-director Mike Mills's semi-autobiographical story of a father's last few years of life and a son's attempt to find a romantic relationship that will last more than just a little while. The father, played by Christopher Plummer, announces that, now that his wife of 40+ years has died, he feels able to admit openly that he is gay, and he is on the search for a boyfriend. It's not long, though, before he is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the film moves back and forth in time between these last years and the life of his son, Ewan McGregor, in the aftermath of his father's death, when he inherits his telepathic dog (complete with subtitles) and starts a romance with a mysterious woman, M矇lanie Laurent.

Weekend is much more focused in its timeline: it depicts a few days in the life of two British men who meet in a bar, drink a lot, spend the night together, and then have to figure out what next. The viewpoint character, Russell (Tom Cullen), lives a life surrounded by straight people, and though he is out to his best friends, his greatest desire is to have a "normal" life. The guy he brings home, Glen (Chris New), is much more radically queer, and one broken heart has bitterly soured him on the whole idea of romance. One of the primary narrative questions that creates suspense, character development, and catharsis is: Will Glen be able to get Russell to kiss him in public before Glen heads off to study in the U.S. for a few years? That the film makes this question essential, suspenseful, and emotionally powerful is just one tribute to its many virtues.