ON CHESIL BEACH (15)
Skilfully adapted by Ian McEwan from his Booker Prize-nominated novella, On Chesil Beach is a heartbreaking portrait of doomed love that generates one sobering emotional crescendo after another, like waves crashing against a forlorn shore.
Three-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle are impeccably cast as trembling virginal newlyweds, who are ill-equipped to navigate the minefields of each other's insecurities and sensitively handled intimations of sexual abuse by one parent.
There is a tragic inevitability to the trajectory of the couple's fragile relationship, and a quiet devastation shared by us and the characters as awkwardness, shame and incomprehension press a self-destruct button, inflicting deep wounds that will never heal.
"I am ... most terribly sorry...," whispers the young wife as she fumbles for the right words - no, any words - to soothe her spouse.
Dominic Cooke's film elegantly reveals the chinks of pain and regret in each stuttering syllable.
Rating: Four stars
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