Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle give this uneasy romance enough tenderness to make its frustrations matter. Dominic Cooke’s adaptation is worth considering for the performances, though the drawn-out build-up and overexplained feelings blunt its effect.
On Chesil Beach is a careful, intermittently affecting romance that spends too long preparing us to be upset. Dominic Cooke directs Ian McEwan’s adaptation of his own novel, following Florence Ponting and Edward Mayhew through the awkward business of loving someone without knowing how to talk about sex. The performances give that predicament weight, and the film treats embarrassment seriously enough to make us uncomfortable. Its patience eventually becomes a problem, especially when the writing begins to explain feelings the actors have already made clear.
Saoirse Ronan gives Florence a sense of someone working hard to keep an encounter manageable. Her warmth towards Edward never quite removes the difficulty of being close to him. Billy Howle makes Edward’s insecurity sufficiently exposed that we can see how affection becomes another source of pressure. We were moved by the tentative courtship, because both actors make the wish to please each other painfully clear. Their rapport makes it worth paying attention when the writing grows stiff.
The scenes with Anne-Marie Duff, as Marjorie Mayhew, give Billy Howle welcome opportunities to do something beyond negotiating the central romance. They help Edward seem like a person whose life continues outside the couple’s shared unease. Elsewhere, Ian McEwan’s dialogue can sound painstakingly arranged to make a point about repression. The actors have to work around that stiffness, and there are stretches when we are too conscious of everyone labouring to bring an awkward exchange to life.
Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography is most effective when it draws our attention to faces and small physical gestures. That scrutiny makes intimacy uncomfortable, because there is no easy way to overlook a hesitation. Suzie Davies’s production design rewards scrutiny in the early scenes, though the careful presentation can make the surroundings feel over-arranged. There is a stiffness to some of these spaces that suits the characters’ unease, but also makes the drama feel hemmed in.
Nick Fenton’s editing is less successful at managing how long we spend anticipating the next difficult moment. The build-up repeatedly holds us in the same uncertainty after its effect has registered, and the film’s 110 minutes begin to feel generous for the material. Dan Jones’s music adds emotional emphasis that these performances scarcely need. That extra prompting makes the tenderness feel less spontaneous, particularly when the writing is already working hard to ensure we understand the couple’s difficulties.
Repressed desire is hardly unfamiliar territory for a period romance, but the awkwardness here is worth taking seriously. There is an uncomfortable difference between wanting to make someone happy and feeling obliged to provide the happiness they expect, and the central performances keep that difference visible. The film does not always trust us to notice it.
Anyone drawn to intimate dramas about people failing to speak plainly will find something to value here. We would hesitate to offer it as an evening of romantic consolation. Choose it for the two leads, provided a long evening of awkward conversation sounds like your kind of romance.
