There's talent on display in abundance, (director Dominic Cooke, Ian McEwan adapting his own novel and a cast headed by the superb Saoirse Ronan, the excellent and up-and-coming Billy Howle, Emily Watson, Anne--Marie Duff, Samuel West etc.), so why is "On Chesil Beach" so dull? Could it be the source material itself was dull, (I haven't read the novel), but certainly this tale, set over the course of a young couple's wedding night with flashbacks to how they met, their courtship and so on, never really comes to life.
The time is 1962, before 'the sexual revolution', but McEwan's young couple, (Ronan and Howle), behave as if the birds and the bees were simply that and sex was an unutterable four-letter word, or perhaps just a three letter word that other people used but never them, despite Howle's brain-damaged mother, (Duff, excellent), taking her clothes off at every opportunity. There's no denying that this is a civilised and intelligent picture that builds up to one very beautifully written, directed and acted scene on the beach of the title, but otherwise I just couldn't really see the point of it. A major disappointment.
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