Hope Gap

A twenty-nine-year marriage crumbles in this intimate drama, adapted by writer/director William Nicholson from his 1999 play The Retreat from Moscow. Poetry expert Annette Bening and school history teacher Bill Nighy have been bickering for years, but the gulf between her volatility and his reserve eventually proves too wide to bridge. He leaves for someone else, she is devastated, and their son (Josh O'Connor) tries to be a comfort while feeling like his childhood memories have been tainted. Nicholson's script has thorough sympathy for all parties, and Bening is first-rate, bringing shell-shocked bitterness and spiky wit to her character's unenviable situation. Nighy is just-so in his typically taciturn awkwardness, while O'Connor's intermediary role proves a tad underwritten. Meanwhile, the numerous poetic quotations and sweeping shots of picturesque Seaford on the East Sussex coast actually highlight the film's emotional reticence - although classy and occasionally insightful, Hope Gap tends to talk around difficult emotions rather than share them with the audience.