On Chesil Beach (2017)

On Chesil Beach is a screen adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novella of the same name and Dominic Cooke’s directorial debut. Set in England of 1962, the film stars Saoirse Ronan as tender and loving Florence and Billy Howle as awkward, yet slightly quarrelsome Edward and observes the two young people as they fall in love, get married, and spend their honeymoon in a hotel at the beautiful and rocky Chesil Beach, where their relationship is tortured by the partners’ different perception of sex and its role in their lives.

Florence and Edward happen to be from entirely different worlds. He is a self-made history graduate living in an old house with his ‘brain-damaged’ mother, an ever-absent father, and two infuriating twin-sisters. The place is filled with dirty dishes, painted newspaper cutouts, and other bric-a-brac and generally seems to be the birthplace of laziness and mundane dread — the kind that Edward, upon receiving his First-Class degree, aspires to escape. Florence, a musician in a string quartet, lives in a large apartment with her sterile upper-class parents who are rapidly caricatured as people existing on the dramatic side of the same realm as Dursleys from Harry Potter. Simply put, Edward is the blue-collar hooligan with a kind heart and encyclopaedic mind that Florence always wanted, and she is that affectionate woman who can help him figure his life out and escape the dump.

This back-story is conveyed to us through flashbacks which are forced upon the audience as the two lovers are slowly nearing the bed, where they find the death of their young marriage: Edward is eager, but Florence is scared and also, she believes, asexual. She is, however, willing to do anything to save the marriage and thus tells Edward that she would allow, and encourage, his affairs for as long as he loves her.

And so the film falls apart, at that moment around halfway through the screen-time, as Edward throws a tantrum and rejects Florence altogether. As we are shown, in unexpected jumps in time, the remainder of his mildly miserable life, there is little empathy that we have for Edward because of a large number of what-ifs and maybes that his decision provokes. In the end, it turns out, the film was not about differences in social class and upbringing at all, even though those happened to be in the focus for the lion’s share of the runtime, but it is rather about choices and memories. And so we get the mandatory scene of their meeting, years and years later, with the two, old and grey, realising suddenly then how awful the mistake was and how wonderful it all could have been. Yet, it couldn’t be less convincing that Edward should have stayed with Florence — of course, his particular life may have played out badly, but how much of that was actually caused by his decision?

It seems to me that the theme of choices and their consequences works best in film if the script manages to convince, both through the backstory and the portrayal of the characters’ lives after the choice is made, that it all could have only been right in just one scenario. Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight does this particularly well: by the moment the main character meets the one who betrayed his ability to embrace his sexuality, we know enough about the story to fill in all the missing what-ifs. The viewer, then, knows exactly what the crucial choice, the turning point in the character’s life, was, and there is no confusion about how gravely said choice affected the narrative. In On Chesil Beach, however, this becomes rather difficult to trace. Were we meant to believe that Edward’s choice of rejecting Florence was inherently wrong? Sure, he overreacted, but it does not seem fair for the film to suggest that deciding not to deprive himself of marriage with sexual intimacy is somehow cruel or egotistic. Yet, if the film did not intend to say that it is morally incorrect, then what is the final takeaway? That choices simply exist, since we can never discover what would have happened? It seems like a weak conclusion, especially considering how promising the idea is: we see two characters overcome differences in upbringing, class, education, and character only to find themselves stupored by sexual incompatibility, which is, for some reason, never discussed before or after. How is it possible for us to believe simultaneously in Edward’s love for Florence and his inability to communicate his worries about sex to her? Similarly, why can we not expect that Florence, who clearly shows pre-existing suspicion of her asexuality, tells Edward about it before the moment arrives? Surely, it all does not seem impossible to solve.

There is, however, plenty of charm in the film, and this is mostly due to Saoirse Ronan’s performance: she is, again, Lady Bird, perceptive, tender, and emotional, but also fragile and nervous. Here, she is best in those scenes that focus on sexual discomfort, where she is, at once, clumsy yet completely aware of what’s going on. Billy Howle is less impressive as temperamental Edward; while he succeeds at showing the character’s weaker, more vulnerable side, he does not appear believable as a troublemaker or a hooligan.

Dominic Cooke’s direction is somewhat plain, borrowing most of its repertoire from the many generic-looking period movies, barring a few stunning shots here and there (in particular, the closing one, with the two lovers stretching the sides of the camera into opposite directions as they part at the beach). Cooke, however, is confident in his ability to depict the 70s and then the 2000s; in this film, sadly, the moments that are weakest from a narrative standpoint are also the strongest in terms of filmmaking.

Although it is a tender and sprawling picture, On Chesil Beach ultimately does not develop its one-million-elevator-pitch idea into anything worthwhile. It is, however, a pretty and well-sounding film with plenty of good acting.