45 Years

Andrew Haigh, the assistant editor turned filmmaker, is known for his relationship focused dramas Weekend and the HBO series Looking. Now he teams up with two giants of British cinema, Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay with 45 Years. 

Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff (Tom Courtenay) are happily married retirees who are preparing to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. After a health scare for Geoff, the pair had to cancel their 40th anniversary, which makes their upcoming event all the more important. A lavish dinner party is planned, but a tragic spanner is thrown into the works when it’s revealed that the body of an ex-lover of Geoff’s from the 1960s has become visible in a melting glacier, perfectly intact. Over the following six days, this reopening of old-wounds threatens to destroy a lot more than just their anniversary party. 

It’s refreshing to see a marriage that isn’t blatantly and inexplicably dysfunctional on the surface, one that doesn’t end up with pots and pans being thrown every other day. Instead, after the discovery of Geoff’s past flame, 45 Years presents a subtle breakdown and dislocation between a couple, one that only hints at the brooding underneath. This is a very simple, minimalistic film that really doesn’t set out to entertain but rather to tell a story that it believes is captivating in and of itself. Which it most certainly is. For a ninety minute film whose composition can be broken down into long-shots of the English countryside, dog-walking, party-planning, smoking and a couple who are generally avoiding the subject it’s amazing how effective 45 Years is at holding your attention. You become invested in Kate & Geoff, yearning for their past secrets and hoping to preserve their future, which no longer seems as certain as it once was. 

Tom Courtenay gives a doddery performance which paints a picture of a gentle old man struggling with a re-awoken piece of his past. A memory which he genuinely seems to have repressed but one which is obviously capable of breaking him down. He becomes quietly obsessed with what once was, and starts to distance himself from the present moment. The news affects Kate on a much more serious level, remaining resilient on the exterior whist her whole simple world for the first time has the capability of imploding around her. Much of this is communicated through Rampling’s nuanced facial expressions and short dialogue-free scenes that exhibit the power of images in their simplest form. One such scene sees Kate go up into the attic alone, using a slide projector to uncover probably the most crucial and tragic part of the story. The projector is the only source of light and the scene plummets into darkness between each slide. The simple composition of these scenes, and the film as a whole really bring out the unseen elements of these two fantastic performances. Courtenay and Rampling even more so, are able to dominate this film in a way that you don’t see very often. 

45 Years is an extremely genuine, empathetic piece of human-interest cinema which is most accomplished in its subtlety. It’s certainly not for everybody, but for what it sets out to do, it’s a real achievement. Towards the end at the party, you’d be flawed not to think that things have been mended between Geoff and Kate, but the final few frames hint at an internal conflict, a confusion, a deep-seated apprehension that suggests that things will never be the same, that you can’t just start again.