''45 Years'' is a 2015 British
romantic drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed and written by
Andrew Haigh
Andrew Haigh (; born 7 March 1973) is a British filmmaker.
Early life
Haigh was born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. He read History at Newcastle University.
Career
Haigh worked as an assistant editor on films such as ''Gladiator (200 ...
. The film is based on the
short story
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...
"In Another Country" by
David Constantine
David John Constantine (born 1944) is an English poet, author and translator.
Background
Born in Salford, Constantine read Modern Languages at Wadham College, Oxford, and was a Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford, until 2000, when he became a ...
.
The film premiered in the main competition section of the
65th Berlin International Film Festival
The 65th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 5 to 15 February 2015, with American film director Darren Aronofsky as the President of the Jury. German film director Wim Wenders was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear. The ...
.
Charlotte Rampling
Tessa Charlotte Rampling (born 5 February 1946) is an English actress, known for her work in European arthouse films in English, French, and Italian. An icon of the Swinging Sixties, she began her career as a model.
She was cast in the role ...
won the
Silver Bear for Best Actress
The Silver Bear for Best Actress (german: Silberner Bär/Beste Darstellerin) was an award presented at the Berlin International Film Festival from 1956 to 2020. It was given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance and was chos ...
and
Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel Courtenay (; born 25 February 1937) is an English actor. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Courtenay achieved prominence in the 1960s with a series of acclaimed film roles, including ''The Loneliness of t ...
won the
Silver Bear for Best Actor
The Silver Bear for Best Actor (german: Silberner Bär/Bester Darsteller) was an award presented at the Berlin International Film Festival from 1956 to 2020. It was given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance and was chosen by ...
.
At the
88th Academy Awards
The 88th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2015 and took place on February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, 5:30 p.m. PST. Du ...
, Rampling received a nomination for
Best Actress in a Leading Role
The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. ...
.
It was selected to be screened in the Special Presentations section of the
2015 Toronto International Film Festival
The 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 10 to 20 September 2015. On 28 July 2015 the first wave of films to be screened at the Festival was announced. Jean-Marc Vallée's ''Demolition'' starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Naom ...
and also screened at the 2015 Telluride Festival.
It was released in the United Kingdom on 28 August 2015. The film was released in the United States by
Sundance Selects
IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its Sun ...
on 23 December 2015.
Plot
Five years after retirees Kate and Geoff Mercer had to cancel their 40th wedding anniversary because of his heart bypass surgery, the comfortably-off, childless
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
couple are preparing to celebrate their 45th anniversary with dozens of friends at the
Assembly House
The Assembly House is a Georgian Grade I listed building located in Norwich, United Kingdom.
Today, the Assembly House is used for conferences, exhibitions, visual and performing arts activities, and weddings, and is owned by a registered arts ...
in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
. Their morning is somewhat disturbed when Geoff opens a letter telling him that the body of Katya, his German lover in the early 1960s, has become visible in a melting
glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
where she fell into a
crevasse
A crevasse is a deep crack, that forms in a glacier or ice sheet that can be a few inches across to over 40 feet. Crevasses form as a result of the movement and resulting stress associated with the shear stress generated when two semi-rigid pie ...
on their hike in Switzerland over five decades ago.
Kate has been told about Katya previously by Geoff and seems initially unconcerned by his controlled disquiet. Geoff tells Kate that he and Katya had pretended to be married in order to be able to share a room in the more puritanical early 1960s. Because of this, the Swiss authorities consider him to be Katya's next of kin.
As the days pass and preparations for the party continue, Geoff continues to be moody and starts smoking again. One night, Geoff climbs into the attic to look at his memorabilia of Katya and only reluctantly shows a picture of her to an angrily insistent Kate. Kate notices that Katya appears to look much like Kate did when she was young, with similar dark hair.
While Geoff is out at a reunion luncheon at his former workplace, Kate climbs the ladder to the attic. She finds Geoff's scrapbook filled with memorabilia from his time with Katya, including pressed violets from their last hike. She finds a
carousel slide projector
A carousel slide projector is a slide projector that uses a rotary tray to store slides, used to project slide photographs and to create slideshows. It was first patented on May 11, 1965, by David E. Hansen of Fairport, New York. Hansen was an i ...
, loaded with images of Switzerland and Katya, next to a makeshift screen to view them. Kate is shocked to see slides showing that Katya was pregnant at the time of her death.
Kate also takes up smoking again and, upon learning of his visit to the local travel agency to inquire about trips to Switzerland, confronts Geoff about his recent behavior related to Katya, without revealing what she saw in the attic. She says that she now believes that many of their decisions as a couple were influenced by Katya. Geoff promises that their marriage will "start again", which the next morning he marks by serving her tea in bed and making breakfast for her. They attend their anniversary party in the historic Grand Hall. Geoff delivers a tearful speech in which he professes his love for Kate.
The first dance is announced, accompanied by the same first song from their wedding, "
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is a show tune written by American composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach for the 1933 musical '' Roberta''. The song was sung in the Broadway show by Tamara Drasin. Its first recorded performance was by Ge ...
" by
The Platters
The Platters was an American vocal group formed in 1952. They are one of the most successful vocal groups of the early rock and roll era. Their distinctive sound bridges the pre-rock Tin Pan Alley tradition and the new burgeoning genre. The ac ...
. As Geoff and Kate slow dance, she becomes increasingly awkward and rigid, while he becomes silly and playful. As the song ends, Geoff raises their hands together in the air as the party guests cheer, but Kate yanks her arm down. Geoff, apparently oblivious, dances away. Kate stands alone amid the mass of people on the dance floor.
Cast
*
Charlotte Rampling
Tessa Charlotte Rampling (born 5 February 1946) is an English actress, known for her work in European arthouse films in English, French, and Italian. An icon of the Swinging Sixties, she began her career as a model.
She was cast in the role ...
as Kate Mercer
*
Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel Courtenay (; born 25 February 1937) is an English actor. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Courtenay achieved prominence in the 1960s with a series of acclaimed film roles, including ''The Loneliness of t ...
as Geoff Mercer
*
Geraldine James
Geraldine James, OBE (born 6 July 1950) is an English film and television actress.
Biography Early life and family
James was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire, to a cardiologist father and an alcoholic mother, who had been a nurse. She failed her ...
as Lena
*
Dolly Wells
Dorothy Perpetua Wells (born Gatacre; 5 December 1971)Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, vol. III, 2003, pg 3046 is an English actress and writer.
She co-wrote and starred in the Sky Living series ''Doll & Em'' (2014–2015) with Emily ...
as Sally
*
David Sibley as George
* Sam Alexander as Chris the postman
*
Richard Cunningham as Mr. Watkins
* Kevin Matadeen as the Waiter
* Hannah Chalmers as the Travel Agent
* Max Rudd as the Maître d'
Production
Filming lasted over 6 weeks and concluded in May 2014.
Reception
Critical response
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 206 reviews, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''45 Years'' offers richly thought-provoking rewards for fans of adult cinema – and a mesmerizing acting showcase for leads Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a
weighted average
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
score of 94 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."
Mark Kermode
Mark James Patrick Kermode (, ; ; born 2 July 1963) is an English film critic, musician, radio presenter, television presenter and podcaster. He is the chief film critic for ''The Observer'', contributes to the magazine ''Sight & Sound'', prese ...
described the film as a "subtle examination of the persistence of the past and the fragile (in)stability of the present" in ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'', arguing that the lead performances "turn an apparently everyday story of a marriage in quiet crisis into something rather extraordinary." He concludes the review by observing "Like the final shot of ''
The Long Good Friday
''The Long Good Friday'' is a 1980 British gangster film directed by John Mackenzie from a screenplay by Barrie Keeffe, starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren. Set in London, the storyline weaves together events and concerns of the late 1970s, ...
'', which lingers upon Bob Hoskins’s face as he revisits the events that brought him to this sorry pass, ''45 Years'' shows us the past materialising in the expressions of those trapped in the present, staring into an uncertain future."
Accolades
References
External links
*
*
*
*
''45 Years: Fissures''an essay by
Ella Taylor
Ella Taylor is a film critic who was a staff writer for the ''LA Weekly'' and Village Voice Media, writing film and book reviews, interviews, profiles, and cultural and political commentary from 1989 to 2009, when she and much of the staff were la ...
at the
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
* See also: ''
The Crystal Trench'', a 1959 episode of
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' is an American television anthology series created, hosted and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, aired on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. It features dramas, thrillers and mysteries. Between 1962 and 1965 it was ren ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:45 Years
2015 films
2015 independent films
2015 romantic drama films
2010s English-language films
British romantic drama films
Films based on short fiction
Films directed by Andrew Haigh
Films set in Norfolk
Films shot in Norfolk
Film4 Productions films
British Film Institute films
IFC Films films
Curzon Artificial Eye films
2010s British films