45 Years (2015) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Romance

Award-winning actors Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay give career-defining performances in 45 Years. As Kate and Geoff prepare to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary, their marriage is shaken when unexpected news threatens to change their lives.

Storyline: A married couple preparing to celebrate their wedding anniversary receives shattering news that promises to forever change the course of their lives.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov, January 11, 2016 Winner of Silver Berlin Bear Awards for Best Actor and Best Actress, Andrew Haigh's "45 Years" (2015) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Artificial Eye. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film; filmed Q&A session with Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay, director Andrew Haigh, and producer Tristan Goligher; and audio commentary with Andrew Haigh and Tristan Goligher. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature.

From afar it seems like their relationship is as strong as it has ever been. They have grown older but have not stopped loving each other. They both look happy.

But a letter, written in German, reveals a weakness. The letter is addressed to Geoff (Tom Courtenay, Doctor Zhivago, Billy Liar) and confirms that someone has discovered the body of a woman in a glacier somewhere in the Swiss mountains. The woman has been dead for more than forty-five years, but her body is in perfect condition.

The letter upsets Kate (Charlotte Rampling, Night Train to Lisbon, Swimming Pool) but she tries to remain calm before Geoff. They never met but Kate knows the woman -- Geoff was madly in love with her before he married Kate. It took them a long time to remove her from their relationship, but the letter has brought her back in.

In a few days Geoff and Kate are supposed to celebrate their wedding anniversary, but the letter has killed their desire to be part of their own party and now all they want to do is be alone with their thoughts. They do not want to openly admit it, but the letter has also made them question their love. Was it as pure as they thought it was? Was it as strong as they assumed it was? And was it the love they wanted to experience while they could still choose a direction in their lives?

Andrew Haigh's latest film, 45 Years, is deceivingly simple. Initially, it seems like it will chronicle a fairly predictable phase of a long relationship that has been tested many times over the years. As Geoff and Kate begin discussing the letter it becomes clear that they trust each other and know exactly how the other would react; after forty-five years of marriage they feel that nothing can surprise them anymore. But the honest answers do and they both begin reevaluating their relationship.

Then more surprises emerge that gradually force Geoff and Kate out of their comfort zones. Now they look quite awkward because people like them are already immune to the pain of love and loss -- or are they?

The final act is very fluid and gives the viewer the freedom to decide the future of Geoff and Kate's relationship. There are three, possibly even four different scenarios that would make perfect sense. The best one will vary between viewers from different age groups.

Courtenay and Rampling are wonderful together. There is warmth and sincerity between them that will surely force some viewers to compare their characters to Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann's characters in Ingmar Bergman's Saraband.

The film has an appropriately casual atmosphere, but there are a few sequences where some panoramic shots linger a bit too long. They don't come as naturally as they were obviously intended and as a result the desired effect is lost.

The film does not have a prominent soundtrack, but music has an essential role in it. In one of the best sequences Rampling performs a beautiful piano piece by Liszt.

Andrew Haigh's new film will make you think what it means to be in love and question whether true love can last forever. If you are really honest with yourself, it is almost certain that you are going to come up with a few surprising answers, and then ponder a few of the dilemmas the two protagonists are presented with. Curzon Artificial Eye's technical presentation of 45 Years is good. RECOMMENDED.


[CSW] -2.8- This is a real portrait of a marriage, not a sweetly sentimentalized version but of a real long-haul marriage with its share of buried secrets and repressed feelings. The movie provides a laudable subtlety, restraint and nuance in its screenplay and direction. Kate Mercer (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff Mercer (Tom Courtenay) deliver sterling performances, creating authentic, human-scale, fully-fleshed characterizations. However it was an exceedingly slow-moving film even with the confident performances by the lead characters it fail to give the film much life. I kept hoping something (ANYTHING) would actually happen, like maybe a sudden zombie attack, to spur me to full alertness. After all how many distant scenes of rambling walking across the admittedly scenic countryside did we really need? A great film for when you have absolutely nothing else to do.
[V4.0-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.


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