If you like your movies with happy endings this isn't one for you. The story starts with an excruciatingly awkward meal in the hotel room of the young honeymoon couple in 1962 and then the action moves forward a few minutes at a time interspersed by flashbacks to their idyllic courtship and charming romance across class boundaries. Both are virgins and things don't go well in the marital bed. He is embarrassed and she is disgusted. Things are said in the heat of the moment that can't be unsaid, and they agree to divorce on the grounds of non-consummation. I don't want to give too much away, but we then follow his life first 13 then 45 years later. In common with at least one other reviewer I thought that the whole 45 year section could have been cut, but overall it is a beautiful evocation of the period, superbly acted and shot, with characters that you really care about. I came away sad, but counting my blessings that I was born a crucial 20 years later in a time where such ignorance and misunderstandings are much rarer.
Review of On Chesil Beach
