I am surprised that I was so taken by this movie, the tale of a 45 year marriage tested deeply by a husband's past relationship. The story unfolds so very slowly but I realized two things, first, that the various scenes felt like real life to me, unremarkable but yet meaningful and secondly, by the end I found that these two people had become real to me. And as the credits rolled, I wished I could know what would happen to them. But this is not a sequel film. It is more like real life in that. What's going to happen to these two individuals is up for grabs, but it isn't looking good at the end, although the husband (Tom Courtenay in a performance I wish had been nominated for an Oscar) may think his wife (Charlotte Rampling in a performance that was nominated for the Oscar) will be able to begin anew with him.
The slow pace builds not only the characters but the drama of the relationship between this childless husband and wife who appear restrained by nature and history.
Kate Mercer has been arranging a 45th wedding anniversary party for the couple. They did not celebrate at their 40th because Geoff had by pass surgery, from which, it appears as the movie begins he has not recovered entirely. He is functional, but, as he describes himself, he is decrepit. Their life together is quiet, and peaceful, walks with the dog and quiet meals at the kitchen table of their rural (Norwich, England) home. And then he receives a letter.
The body of a woman that Geoff knew, and loved, in the early 1960s, someone before Kate's entry into his life, has been found in a mountain crevice in Switzerland. No, there is no issue of foul play. It's not that kind of film. The death of the young woman (Katya, note the similar name; though never discussed, it does not seem accidental) was an accident during a climbing expedition at which there had been a guide. The guide and Katya were ahead of Geoff and she simply fell. Her body had not been found then, but now, with various climate and topographical changes, it has. The girl is frozen, literally, and in time. Geoff had moved on to marry Kate. But what becomes an issue to Kate, had he ever moved on? Kate knows of Katya, and that she died. Geoff did not hide that when they met. But he also did not reveal the depth and nuance, contained in one fact that Kate discovers in going through attic memorabilia while Geoff attends, reluctantly, a party thrown at the cement factory of which he was once a manager: Katya was pregnant when she died. He could have been a father, something not possible with Kate. Kate remains quiet about her new knowledge. But Geoff had already told her that he would have married Katya, had she lived. We can see the torment in Kate's eyes--she and Geoff would NEVER have occurred had Katya lived. The obvious torment for Geoff, the need he cannot ultimately fulfill for health reasons, is that he wants to see where the body still remains, visible, but not yet recovered.
The cinematography mirrors the mood, perhaps even reflects it more strongly than the tamped down interactions between husband and wife. The cold rain, the tempestuous wind, the darkening sky, with occasional flecks of sun--I could feel them via the camera. They have this party coming. They are pulling away from one another in the week before it.
When the night of the party comes around, there seems to be real hope. He is in tux. She is wearing the lovely necklace (which she tried on gloomily at her dressing table, having found it before the gathering) Geoff gifted her. She has been unable to buy him a gift, but he seems undisturbed by that. He has promised to, and does, act as a man who loves his wife of many years. He talks of choices made that refer, really, to his life before Kate, with Katya, and the one with Kate, after Katya. They dance to their wedding song, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". His movie long torpor toward his wife seems gone. He is a loving husband. She, we can see in closeup and in long shot, that she is questioning, and tense. You want her to relax, to trust, to forgive Geoff for having loved so much, and so long, someone long dead, for feeling somehow dismissed for 45 years.
And then the music stops, and Kate wrenches her hand from Geoff. He doesn't seem to notice. The partygoers continue their revel. The movie is over. Life goes on. Life bumps on.
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