45 Years

45 Years (15)

UK 2015  94 mins  Dir: Andrew Haigh  Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James, Dolly Wells, David Sibley

Thanks to the likes of Quartet and those Exotic Marigold Hotels, the film industry has woken up to the existence of the oldie market. Maybe this audience was overlooked for so long because they prefer to shuffle gently to multiplexes rather than stampede on the opening weekend, like spotty teens eager to soak up the latest FX-driven superhero adventure. But when the grosses are totted up over many months, they amount to serious moolah. The formula for box office success requires lashings of nostalgia, plenty of gentle codger humour with some mildly racy seaside postcard naughtiness, familiar aging thesps cast as twinkly-eyed pensioners, and a dash of non-distressing reality to keep things just the right side of saccharine. Adapted from a short story by David Constantine, Andrew Haigh’s slow-burning follow-up to his excellent gay drama Weekend is a little more honest and raw. Not Amour raw, obviously, but it still feels more like a French film than an English one, which is underlined by the casting of Charlotte Rampling on fine flinty form.

It opens with a bit of subtle foreshadowing as an old slide projector clicks gently in darkness. Then we’re introduced to twilight years couple Kate (Rampling) and Geoff Mercer (Courtenay). Unburdened by children but blessed with a wide circle of friends, they’re enjoying a comfortable retirement in an idyllic small town on the Norfolk Broads. Right now, the couple are busy organising a 45th wedding anniversary bash. Yes, it’s an odd one to celebrate. But as Geoff explains to everyone, the 40th was called off because of his heart bypass operation.

Then a letter arrives from the Swiss authorities. The body of Katya – Geoff’s former girlfriend, who tumbled off a mountain during their walking holiday 50 years earlier – has finally been found frozen in a glacier. This prompts an unexpected outpouring of emotion that exposes fissures in the couple’s outwardly settled relationship. Rattled Geoff takes up smoking again and starts rummaging around in the attic in the middle of the night in search of old photographs. Unnerved Kate begins to realise how little they’ve communicated about their feelings, despite their closeness, and feels understandably threatened by a woman whose youth is perfectly preserved in her husband’s memories, old photographs, and now, apparently, a block of ice.

There’s an easily predictable revelation along the way, but this isn’t about plot twists so much as emotions – and Haigh is a director who trusts his audience to read these without spelling them out. In this he’s assisted by exemplary performances from his veteran leads, who are effortlessly convincing as an old married couple. Rampling’s default setting is chilly and severe, at which she excels, but this is a role that requires her to be affectionate, sad and vulnerable as well. Courtenay is equally excellent as the tormented and increasingly distracted Geoff, who cuts short one of the least flattering sex scenes in movie history. Haigh also makes sly use of sixties pop, from Gary Puckett and the Union Gap’s Young Girl to the Moody Blues’ Go Now, as he builds towards an ending of carefully calibrated ambiguity.