Film
On Chesil Beach + Q&A
- Director
- Dominic Cooke
- Certificate
- 15
- Running Time
- 110 mins
The tenth (count ’em!) screen adaptation of an Ian McEwan novel (the most successful so far being Atonement) is the directorial debut of theatre and TV veteran Dominic Cooke.
It’s 1962 – a year before sex began in Britain, as Philip Larkin famously informed us. That’s bad news for young married couple Billy Howle and the ever-excellent Saoirse Ronan. Naïve and inhibited, the educated twosome endure the most disastrous and humiliating wedding night in literary history at a Chesil Beach seaside hotel, which blights their future relationship. Adapted by the author himself, this flashback-driven drama is as tasteful as you might expect, as well as being a powerful reminder of a thankfully bygone era in which social convention obliged virginal couples to fumble on their wedding nights in the expectation of an earth-shaking experience. Reviews were generally positive when the film was unveiled at last year’s Toronto Film Festival. The Curzon’s screening is followed by a Q&A with producer Elizabeth Karlsen.
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