Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

The Deep Blue Sea Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov May 12, 2012

Nominated for Golden Seashell Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, Terence Davies' "The Deep Blue Sea" (2011) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Artificial Eye. The supplemental features on the disc include the film's original theatrical trailer; video interview with director Terence Davies; standard making of featurette; and audio commentary by director Terence Davies and Ian Haydn Smith. In English, without optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

"Beware of passion, Hester. It always leads to something ugly."

Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener, Agora) is a beautiful and intelligent young woman whose life has taken an unexpected turn. She is married to Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale, Orlando, My Week with Marilyn), a well respected and much older than her judge, but has fallen in love with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston, War Horse), a handsome and unpredictable RAF pilot.

There is a part of Hester that wants to remain loyal to Sir William - or so it seems - but her heart disagrees. When she is around Freddie she feels alive, inspired to dream beautiful dreams, and when she is with Sir William she feels like a woman whose best years are behind her.

But Freddie’s unpredictability and failure to commit to their relationship have seriously traumatized Hester. He has been slowly drifting away from her, and the more she has been trying to bring him back, the clearer it has become to her that he will never love her as she imagined he would. The disappointing realization has brought unbearable pain and Hester has tried to commit suicide.

Based on Terrence Rattigan's powerful play, Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea is a film of subtle nuances. Its themes are easy to identify, but there are various overtones around them that give the film its identity.

The film is structured as a series of flashbacks that cut into the present to reveal important bits of information. The present is the end of the relationship between Hester and Freddie, while the flashbacks are glimpses from important events that have determined its fate.

Also an important character in the film is the city of London, looking subdued, dark and even dangerous. In the years after the war the city is slowly coming back to life, but it is still anemic and lacking identity.

There are no large panoramic vistas and, more importantly, movement is kept to an absolute minimum. As a result, the film lacks energy, and more often than not it feels like an ambitious theater play in which the actors are simply doing their best to expand the story beyond its natural limits.

The dialog is surprisingly uneven. For example, there are numerous exchanges between the main characters that gradually build up to what one expects would be a serious climax but then dissolve into underwhelming bickering. Because of these exchanges, the film looks and feels disappointingly artificial.

Despite the problematic script, however, the cast is excellent. Weisz in particular is outstanding as the heartbroken Hester who comes to realize that she cannot have the man she loves. The sequence at the end of the film where she makes the important decision that effectively ends her relationship with Freddie is simply terrific. Beale’s time in front of the camera is limited, but his performance is the only one that matches the quality of Weisz’s performance.

The Deep Blue Sea was lensned by cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister, who is currently working with director Charlie Stratton on Therese Raquin, with Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton and Jessica Lange.

Note: Last year, The Deep Blue Sea was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and the San Sebastian Film Festival, where it was nominated for the prestigious Golden Seashell Award.

The Deep Blue Sea Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Artificial Eye.

The film has a very unique look - the overwhelming majority of the footage looks soft and even faded, almost like a very long flashback. In the video interview included on the disc, director Terence Davies quickly explains that the look of the film imitates the look of the post-war world he grew up in, which apparently was notably gloomy and devoid of bright and lush colors. Contrast is also toned down. The prominent colors are very soft browns, yellows, grays, greens, and whites. There are no traces of problematic post-production corrections. Compression is also very good. Finally, there are no purely transfer-specific anomalies to report in this review. All in all, the presentation is on par with some of the best ones courtesy of Artificial Eye. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

The Deep Blue Sea Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and English LPCM 2.0. For the record, Artificial Eye have not provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.

The difference between the two audio tracks is enormous. The film has an excellent classical soundtrack which sounds very different on the two lossless tracks. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track adds a great deal of depth that is simply missing on the LPCM 2.0 track. The strings, in particular, sound far lusher. The ambient effects in the beginning of the film, after the suicide attempt, are also a lot more effective. This said, the English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track will not test the muscles of your audio system, but audiophiles will certainly be pleased with its wide range of nuanced dynamics.

The Deep Blue Sea Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - the original theatrical trailer for The Deep Blue Sea. In English, not subtitled. (2 min, 1080p).

• Interview - in this video interview, director Terence Davies discusses the look and themes of The Deep Blue Sea as well as the difficult dilemmas the main characters in the film face. In English, not subtitled. (10 min, PAL).
  
  

• Making of - a standard featurette with raw footage from the shooting of the film and short comments from director Terence Davies and various cast and crew members. In English, not subtitled. (10 min, PAL).

• Commentary - an audio commentary by director Terence Davies and Ian Haydn Smith. This is a very technical commentary with an abundance of information about the structure of the film (the overlapping of past and present), its color scheme, the framing of specific scenes, the relationship between the classical music and the camera movement, etc.

The Deep Blue Sea Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I know Terence Rattigan's play very well and wanted to like this film a lot, but there are large portions of it that I simply could not warm up to. The cast is excellent, but the atmosphere in the film is too sterile. There are also certain updates in Terence Davies' screenplay that I think radically change the nature of some of the key conflicts. The film is worth seeing, but I would not recommend a blind buy. If you can, RENT IT first.