Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Like a lot of people who filed reviews, when I saw this for the first time I had no idea what I was getting into. And it starts sloooooowwwwwlllllyyyy. And darkly. And in a manner that leaves room for confusion. All that said, you'd expect a slamming review. Not so. I couldn't give it five stars simply because of those features that would make it hard for a lot of viewers to get into it. But I gave it four because I watched it all the way through, because it grows in power and it grabs you, and not least because it touched me emotionally in the way that good films will. The film is simple in concept and quite cliched because it's been done 10 million times in films and theater and books. It's the classic love triangle. Sir William (Simon Russell Beale) loves Hester (Rachel Weisz) who doesn't love him but instead loves dashing Freddie (Tom Huddleston), who enjoys her body but doesn't love her. William is an intelligent, accomplished lawyer and mama's boy who married the well bred and very hot Hester but obviously is not a stud. Hester, who hates the overbearing mama and lacks any spark at all in her personal relationship with Sir William, falls in love with a flirtatious hot stud fighter pilot Freddie (this is the 1950s in Britain when they were the equivalent of almost forgotten rock stars today). And falls into bed and there are a few nude scenes showing them coiling around each other in bed that explain the immediate physical attraction of both. You can't quite get your head around a mental vision of the older, rotund Sir William doing the nasty with the gorgeous Hester. Which explains why Hester is willing to walk away from a marriage to a man that brought her wealth and security and intellectual companionship for the heady hot love of a younger man. As has been noted, this is well acted. It's slow and probably a lot -if not a majority - of today's viewers will never appreciate that because they'll never stick around long enough to see the performances - not enough car crashes or exploding buildings or big guns and with the exception of the one bedroom scene- not nearly enough skin. But it is an actor's movie. Hester could be offsetting. Gorgeous, hot, with a mouth that begs to be explored and eyes you could fall into. Who could feel sorry for that? But you do. Anybody beyond puberty could understand for force that drives her from her physically unappealing husband for the long, lean, lithe, handsome Freddie. Superficial, sure, and you understand that while sex is a big part of the attraction, it's not nearly the whole answer. There's a line later in the film that explains why she falls so hard for Freddie and it's because in the 1950s, Hester has never been with a man that made her realize what true physical and emotional love feels like. And the emotional flows from the physical. She loves him. Enough to walk away from a man who loves her, has never done anything to deserve her betrayal, who still loves her and maybe always will. But that doesn't overcome the attraction to Freddie. She loves Freddie enough to want him even though she knows he doesn't love her, to degrade herself by begging him to come home, by fighting for just another few hours even knowing it's all ending. Sir William is an accomplished, intelligent man who loves a woman who he knows he can never hold, can never satisfy, in the bedroom. All his accomplishments, his power, his wealth, don't matter to a woman obsessed with another man. And handsome, sexy Freddie is a man lost in yesterday. Like high school athletes whose greatest moments are lived before they turn 20, for Freddie 1940 and the Battle of Britain in which he and other men saved Britain and maybe the world from the Nazi hordes was the high point of his life. Now he's unemployed, hitting the pubs, enjoying a hot married woman who enjoys him and if she could just accept the fact it's a fling he could be satisfied. But she insists on loving him to the point of trying to commit suicide in despair over the fact that he doesn't love her back. That's a lot of pressure on a guy who just wants to forget his life in her arms. And because we're obsessed with happy endings, this is the ultimate downer of a movie. Movie's aren't supposed to end this way. Not today. That, more than anything else, explains the dated feel of the film. What it is - is a tragedy. Where everybody hurts and everybody loses and life just comes along and smacks the hell out of you when you're not expecting it. Which also makes it true to life All that said, if you've ever loved, deeply, strongly and sadly, this movie will speak to you. Love doesn't always end happily. There are days when I think it almost never does. But I like to think there might be a future for the three hurting people shown in this film. You have to hope so, anyway.