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Review: In ‘45 Years,’ a Dead Flame Threatens a Marriage

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By A.O. Scott

• Dec. 22, 2015

Film is an art that plays tricks with time. A movie is a fixed, finite, relatively short experience — a hundred minutes or so in a given viewer’s life — that can span years, even centuries. The phrase “real time,” sometimes applied to movies that match their internal and external chronologies, expresses a wish and a delusion. In reality, as on screen, time compresses, expands, doubles back on itself and even, now and then, appears to stop.

The last shot of “45 Years,” Andrew Haigh’s sensitive and devastating portrait of a long, happy marriage in sudden crisis, is one such frozen moment. Everything is paused, suspended in curious limbo. A wife — I’m treading cautiously to avoid revealing too much — looks at her husband as if seeing him for the first time, as if seized by a sudden and unwelcome new understanding. What will she do with her knowledge? We may think we’ve reached the end of the story, but maybe this is just the beginning.

What, exactly, came before? By the time the final credits appear, in effect stopping the narrative in the middle (which is where all plots really end), it feels as if we have known this couple, Kate and Geoff Mercer, forever. It’s only been about a week (or, in another sense of “really,” just an hour and a half or so), but that has been enough to establish the rhythms of daily routine and longstanding intimacy. Kate (Charlotte Rampling) is a retired schoolteacher. Geoff (Tom Courtenay) was a factory manager. They never had children. Their life — walks with their dog in the countryside near their rambling old house; lunches with friends; tea in the afternoon; books at bedtime — is a quiet celebration of hard-won middle-class comforts.

Mr. Haigh, who at 42 is a few years shy of his movie’s title, shades his picture of the Mercers with subtle nostalgia. Like the couple played by Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen in Mike Leigh’s “Another Year,” Geoff and Kate are serene survivors of Britain’s postwar transformation, beneficiaries of the collapse of old hierarchies and the expansion of opportunity. Ms. Rampling, 69, and Mr. Courtenay, 78, are themselves both avatars of the ’60s, though her star rose a bit later than his. In “Billy Liar” and “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” he established himself as one of the era’s great rebels, a wiry, jumpy young man pushing upward and outward against the constraints of class and circumstance.

Anatomy of a Scene | ‘45 Years’

Andrew haigh narrates a sequence from his film featuring charlotte rampling and tom courtenay..

It isn’t hard to supply adventurous pasts for Geoff and Kate, who reminisce fondly about the early days of their relationship. But the past intrudes on them in an unexpected and unnerving way. As they are arranging a big anniversary party, a letter arrives from Switzerland. The body of Katya, a former girlfriend of Geoff’s who died in a mountaineering accident while they were traveling together, has been recovered from a glacier, and the authorities believe Geoff is the next of kin.

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• Entertainment
• Review: Charlotte Rampling Gives a Performance for the Ages in <i>45 Years</i>

Review: Charlotte Rampling Gives a Performance for the Ages in 45 Years

O ur ideas of love are sometimes shaped more by what’s outside of us than what’s within: It’s always better for someone else. Maybe that’s why we practically melt when we see an older couple on the street, holding hands and seemingly devoted to each other. Even if we know nothing about their lives, we look at them and think, Somehow, they’ve done it right.

In Andrew Haigh’s delicately shaded drama 45 Years, Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay play one of those couples, Kate and Geoff Mercer. The two are nearing their 45th wedding anniversary, and they’re deep in the planning for a big party. As the event draws near, Geoff gets some news that shakes him: The body of a woman he used to love—a potent memory with a name attached, Katya—has been found in Switzerland; she’s been lost for close to 50 years. Geoff is shaken by this sudden reminder of lost love, now made crushingly final, yet the news affects Kate even more deeply. She knew so little about Katya. Why hadn’t her husband told her more? And why is he now so filled with grief that he’s drifted miles away?

That’s the rough, jagged outline of 45 Years, which Haigh adapted from a short story by David Constantine, though any explanation of what happens in the movie pales in the context of how it happens. Kate and Geoff live in Norfolk, and the countryside itself seems a part of their union: The dog must be walked, the occasional trip into town must be made. But the cozy house they live in—the home this childless couple has made together—has suddenly become a country unto itself, a vast, moonlike space that separates them. It appears, too, that Geoff and Kate’s reaction to this news of Katya isn’t just a response to a specific event, but a token of all the things in their lives that might have gone differently: Do they regret not having had children, even if their closeness as a couple is partly a result of that? (The question hangs in the air, a sodden cloud of a question mark, especially when it’s revealed that Katya may have been pregnant when she died.) At one point Geoff recedes into the attic to rummage for an old photograph of Katya. When Kate asks to see it, he refuses, and instead of backing down, she becomes enraged: “Show me the bloody picture!” While Kate’s anger and frustration fill her with a strange, ruthless force, Geoff becomes more withdrawn—it’s as if his spirit has come unglued from his body.

This is an actors’ movie, and Haigh—whose previous film was the tender 2011 drama Weekend —gives his performers limitless room to roam. Courtenay is terrific, particularly in a role demanding that he essentially close in on himself—it’s as if he’s pulling away from Kate in ever-widening circles, like a tamed hawk suddenly and inexplicably feeling the need to escape. But this is really Rampling’s movie: She has always possessed great physical beauty, and here, even doing something as simple as reaching for a glass in the cupboard, she’s as lithe as a ballerina swan. But there’s no hiding her age, and that’s the glory of it: Her smile and her eyes are the same as they ever were, though time has done its work everywhere else, as it does on all of us if we have the guts to let it. When Rampling’s Kate pleads with her husband to tell her more—and then, understandably, closes up like a flower at night, unable to bear anymore—her vulnerability becomes a thing of lacerating power. The movie’s final scene is densely populated, yet there’s no one but Rampling. She’s alone with herself, and inside herself, and her suffering is so resplendent that we’re faced with the terrifying choice of wanting to bask in it and feeling we should turn away. In the end, there’s no turning away.

The devastating truth of 45 Years, so beautifully wrought, is that even the most devoted couples are made up of two people who are essentially alone. If they’re lucky, the bridge they’ve built between them is strong. In the movie’s final moment, Rampling’s face—in its determination, resignation and despair—reflects 1,000 facets of that truth. But mostly, it’s the face of a woman who knows her bridge has washed away.

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45 Years : A Quiet Romantic Nightmare

A long-married couple grapples with news from the past in Andrew Haigh’s Oscar-nominated film.

45 Years begins the way many tense mysteries do—with a dark secret being unearthed. But this is no Nordic crime thriller, or horror film about monsters emerging from the deep. The cold case that’s reopened in 45 Years is a romance, involving a long-ago love of Geoff’s (Tom Courtenay) who died in a hiking accident decades ago. The news that her body has finally been found begins Andrew Haigh’s quietly taut drama, and slowly infects Geoff’s marriage to Kate (Charlotte Rampling) just as they prepare to celebrate their 45th anniversary.

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If this sounds like it could be tough going, it is. But 45 Years is methodical in its devastation, chronicling a busier-than-usual week in Kate and Geoff’s quiet, settled life in Norfolk, England, after this dark news breaks. Like Haigh’s last film, the masterful 2011 romantic drama Weekend , it succeeds most with its muted moments, in the stilted pauses and loaded glances Kate can’t avoid as Geoff’s memories begin to take over every part of his life. Haigh brilliantly sidesteps melodrama and clunky exposition as he picks at the margins of this seemingly stable relationship.

His biggest weapon, of course, is Rampling, who manages to convey so much without speaking. It’s perhaps awkward to praise Rampling, who deservingly received an Oscar nomination for her performance, so soon after she aired a host of opinions about “ racism against white people ” in a French radio interview, but her work in 45 Years is undeniable, a testament to an incredible career of understated performances. Kate is a woman who exudes contentment and confidence in her life: She and Geoff don’t have children and are less sociable than some of their friends, but that’s easily explained by their strong connection.

Haigh, who also worked on the HBO show Looking , builds up the world around Geoff and Kate with similar grace. Weekend, centered around the gay scene in the mid-sized English city of Nottingham, had an amazing sense of place for a film that was largely set in people’s apartments. Geoff and Kate’s countryside existence in Norfolk feels parochial in all the right ways—comforting and picturesque—until Kate begins to chafe at Geoff’s obsessive focus on the past, at which point the walls start closing in. The couple’s friends go from supportive to pesky, and Kate suddenly can’t walk down the street without being reminded of her husband’s old flame. Haigh shifts the world on its axis in a thousand subtle ways, without needing to lean much on dialogue.

45 Years is based on a short story, “In Another Country” by David Constantine, who was in turn inspired by a real news story of a glacier melting enough to reveal the perfectly preserved corpse of someone who’d died on a French mountain decades before. It’s an apt and disturbing metaphor for the kinds of hidden secrets that can surface only decades after the fact. Geoff hasn’t so much lied to Kate about the past as he’s buried it himself, so long resigned to the loss of the alternate life he could have led. Kate’s inadequacy isn’t in trying to compete with another person for her husband’s affections, but in trying to have the life she’s led measure up to another that exists only in fantasy. It’s a horrifying scenario to consider, but at the same time, a disturbingly plausible one.

Eventually, the film’s plot ramps up to mete out more crushing revelations, including a scene with a slide projector that Haigh strangely foreshadows in the opening credits of the film. But just as it seems 45 Years is building to an unnatural, histrionic conclusion, Haigh and Rampling pull back again and, with one wordless closing shot, deliver the biggest blow of all—one that’s worth the 95-minute running time alone, and that lingers long after the lights go up.

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Movie Review: 45 Years (2015)

• Howard Schumann
• Movie Reviews
• No responses
• --> September 26, 2015

William Shakespeare wrote (Sonnet 116), “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.” Though Shakespeare would not admit impediments to the marriage of true minds, Kate and Geoff Mercer in Andrew Haigh’s (“Weekend”) 45 Years find that their marriage may be on shakier grounds than they thought when a letter arrives in the mail causing them to question the truth of their relationship. Winners of the Silver Berlin Bear at the 2015 Berlinale, Charlotte Rampling (“ Melancholia ”) and Tom Courtenay (“ The Golden Compass ”) deliver remarkably enduring performances as the childless couple looking forward to the celebration of their 45th wedding anniversary until it is upstaged by an unwanted reminder of the past.

Based on David Constantine’s short story In Another Country , the film is set in the flatlands of Eastern England and takes place in the course of one week, delineated by intertitles. It is restrained and subtle yet manages to convey deep emotional hurt without shouting matches or theatrics. The couple, now in their declining years, live a comfortable life close to the town of Norwich, famous for Julian of Norwich, a 14th-century mystic and author of the first published book in the English language written by a woman. Most days consist of mundane events such as Kate taking the dog Max for walks in the countryside, both going into town to do some shopping, or joining friends on a riverboat excursion.

Their world is turned upside down, however, when only one week before their anniversary, Geoff receives a letter telling him that the body of Katia, his first love, has been discovered, preserved under the ice on a Swiss mountain where she died in an accident fifty years ago. Although this happened before Geoff and Kate met, the letter leaves them both shaken. Outwardly oblivious to the harm the revelation has caused, his actions show that it has affected him deeply. He resorts to smoking again after many years, looks in the attic for old photos of Katia, thinks of going to Switzerland to identify the body, and wanders aimlessly in the town.

When Kate finds out that Geoff is officially listed as Katia’s next of kin and uncovers a very revealing photo of Katia from the past, she begins to question whether or not their relationship was based on a lie. Although the film is told from Kate’s point of view, Haigh refuses to comment on the rightness or wrongness of the circumstances and does not question the way in which the characters react, content to observe rather than judge. Geoff and Kate go through the motions of planning for the party as if nothing has happened, but there is the ever present elephant in the room. Rampling’s facial expressions, even when she is attempting to hide her feelings, reveal deep-seated weariness and pain.

There are no heroes or villains in the film. Shot with loving attention to the silent vistas of the English countryside, 45 Years conveys a sense of isolation, of two people being together yet growing apart, a dream that has been shattered, and a lifetime of security undermined by a moment of doubt. It is a thorny subject but beautifully told with gentleness and love.

Tagged: anniversary , letter , marriage , novel adaptation , vancouver international film festival

I am a retired father of two living with my wife in Vancouver, B.C. who has had a lifelong interest in the arts.

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Common Sense Media Review

Quietly powerful drama about marriage and memory.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that 45 Years is an intense indie drama that deals with mature themes like death, infidelity, and memory, some of which might be too mature for younger viewers. (Not that they're terribly likely to be clamoring to see a movie about an aging, long-married couple anyway.) One scene…

Why Age 15+?

Some profanity, including "s--t" and "f--k."

A long-married couple sometimes shares affectionate moments, including hugs, war

Characters often drink wine, etc. at meals and parties or while relaxing at home

Marital bickering.

Any Positive Content?

Love endures, but honesty is critical. Serious themes include death and infideli

Kate and Geoff have had a long and enduring marriage but are wrestling with them

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A long-married couple sometimes shares affectionate moments, including hugs, warm caresses, and a sex scene that's notable for being more realistic than erotic. No graphic nudity.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters often drink wine, etc. at meals and parties or while relaxing at home. Some smoke cigarettes, including one man who resumes smoking after a long hiatus.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Love endures, but honesty is critical. Serious themes include death and infidelity.

Positive Role Models

Kate and Geoff have had a long and enduring marriage but are wrestling with themselves -- and with each other -- to keep it alive.

Parents need to know that 45 Years is an intense indie drama that deals with mature themes like death, infidelity, and memory, some of which might be too mature for younger viewers. (Not that they're terribly likely to be clamoring to see a movie about an aging, long-married couple anyway.) One scene shows an elderly couple having sex; there's no graphic nudity, but it's clear what they're doing. There's frank talk about one character's death, as well as strong language ("s--t," "f--k," etc.), social drinking, and smoking. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

A master class in facial reveals and discoveries

What's the story.

Days before their 45th wedding anniversary, Geoff ( Tom Courtenay ) and Kate ( Charlotte Rampling ) get an unexpected letter containing a bombshell: A body has been found in the Swiss Alps, and it's the corpse of the woman Geoff was dating decades ago, before he met his wife (the woman fell to her death while she and Geoff were hiking together in the mountains). The news is a shock to Geoff, and while he and Kate prepare to celebrate their long and enduring relationship, he's simultaneously forced to remember his former self. And as he starts to recall old habits and fond memories, Kate is forced to reexamine the foundation of their relationship.

Is It Any Good?

If still waters run deep, then 45 YEARS -- a searing and powerful drama -- has fathoms beneath it. A seemingly stable relationship shifts techtonically, but the audience isn't clubbed over the head with this revolution. Instead, like lobsters sitting in increasingly boiling water, we feel the heat slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, but definitely permanently. Kudos to director Andrew Haigh, who allows the camera to capture the small but significant moments that tell the story of doubt creeping into an otherwise solid marriage. But, truly, it's stars Courtenay and Rampling who make the movie the tour de force that it is.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how 45 Years depicts marriage. Does it seem realistic? How does it compare to the way you've seen marriages portrayed in other movies and TV shows?

Is Kate and Geoff's marriage a good one? What makes a good marriage? How does the film address this question?

What role do drinking and smoking play in the story? Are they necessary to the plot?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 23, 2015
• On DVD or streaming : June 14, 2016
• Cast : Charlotte Rampling , Tom Courtenay
• Director : Andrew Haigh
• Inclusion Information : Gay directors
• Studio : IFC Films
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 113 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language and brief sexuality
• Last updated : June 21, 2023

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Another Year

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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

45 Years [2015]: There is little to dislike about 45 Years . That mostly comes down to the fact that there is little to 45 Years to begin with. Not to say 45 Years is dull or without any substance, but rather that it is focused very much on one conflict in particular. The conflict in question, which threatens Kate ( Charlotte Ramping ) and Geoff’s ( Tom Courtenay ) marriage, is subtle, complex and haunting.

Focus peaking. 45 Years’ director, Andrew Haigh , homes right into what drives the scene and focuses all aspects of the scene towards it. We, as modern-day movie-goers, are used to the shot-reverse shot form of dialogue coverage, but 45 Years forgoes this technique for a far more restrained and subtle technique. 45 Years doesn’t necessarily cut to whoever is talking. Instead, it lingers on the main focus of the scene, despite who’s talking. This style of editing draws the viewer in. The lack of cuts means the illusion of film is maintained (as in real life we don’t abruptly change perspective every time someone starts talking). It’s here that the performances of both leads shine. Small shifts in expression or a flicker in the eye change the whole bearing of a scene and the extended takes mean that the actors can really cast a line and pull us in.

Shifty business. The film’s technical mastery doesn’t end there, however. 45 Years manipulates framing brilliantly. Coupled with long takes, some frames are so comfortable and non-descript that you forget that there hasn’t been a cut in absolutely ages. In fact, I’d be surprised if there weren’t moments where you found yourself forgetting you were watching a film. Sometimes the camera will slowly shift across the scene from subject to subject so seamlessly and smoothly that the need for a cut is simply not there. The film also makes great use of its setting and drops us into the English countryside with vast landscape shots which feast the eyes. While I’m going on about framing, it’s worth mentioning the film’s visual restraint. The colors are generally desaturated, the color palette is limited and there are very few, if any, close-ups. This restraint really helps paint the idyllic, grounded and domestic tone of the film. Despite the lack of visual flair, there is beauty in the functionality and pragmaticism of the cinematography.

From script, to mouth, to screen. With all the above said, none of it would’ve mattered if it was built on the foundation of a rubbish script. Thankfully, the script is as solid as a wrecking ball thrown into a black hole. Subtle symbolism and dialogue which is consistently more than the sum of its parts mean that the film is dense with meaning and emotion. Themes are well realized and the tone and characters are consistent throughout. Clever pacing and structure mean that tension is slowly built and maintained as the end draws nearer. By the end of the film, you’re left so immersed and invested in Kate and Geoff’s nuanced relationship that at times it feels like you’re watching a documentary at times. Which brings me cleanly to the performances. With only two leads it can be difficult for there to feel like something important is happening at any given moment, but the Rampling and Courtenay’s grounded and subtle performances add a weight to each moment which makes all the difference. They exhibit a full range of emotion without a single error to be seen and their chemistry sells their 45-year marriage with ease.

Cancel your trip to the English countryside, 45 Years will take you there faster, cheaper and with only a few repressed emotional issues.

Related:  The film  45 Years  is featured on Borrowing Tape's Best Films of 2015  list.

Watch 45 Years on iTunes

Review:  ’45 Years’ captures a marriage shaken by a seismic jolt

Kenneth Turan reviews ’45 years’ Directed by Andrew Haigh, and starring Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay. Video by Jason H. Neubert

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“45 Years” is a quietly explosive film, a potent drama with a nuanced feel for subtlety and emotional complications. Starring accomplished British veterans Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay, it’s a master class in understated acting that explores what happens to a long-term marriage when a disturbance in the field shifts the ground under everyone’s feet.

On the surface, the story of a slowly spreading crisis in the emotional life of people married longer than many moviegoers have been alive may not sound compelling, but that kind of thinking reckons without the formidable skill and insight of writer-director Andrew Haigh.

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Haigh, whose breakout last film, “Weekend,” explored sexual and emotional intimacy between two men in that brief time span, is attracted to stories about what falling in love does, and does not do, to people’s lives, to the power of passion and jealousy to derange us and throw us off balance no matter what our ages.

In “45 Years,” Haigh had the advantage of starting with “In Another Country,” a masterful short story by award-winning British writer David Constantine, which the filmmaker deftly expanded on and rearranged to exceptional effect.

Of course, the filmmaker also has the advantage of actors of the formidable experience and ability of Rampling and Courtenay (winners of Silver Bears at the Berlin film festival for their performances), who bring decades of living and acting knowledge to their exploration of the ever-shifting power dynamics of a long-term relationship.

And though he started his career as an assistant editor (on films including “Gladiator” and “Black Hawk Down”), Haigh believes in letting scenes play out in two-shots, because, as he said in an interview in Sight & Sound magazine, “I like to see emotional changes happen on screen, not within the edit.” That and his decision to shoot “45 Years” in sequence have enabled his actors to appear at their life-like best.

“45 Years” starts quietly, with a long shot of a house in rural Norfolk, Britain, so tranquil it’s hard to believe any kind of drama can find a home here, but over the week that follows it certainly will.

The Mercers live here, Kate (Rampling in the role of her career) and Geoff (Courtenay). Childless, they’re coming up on their 45th wedding anniversary, and the capable Kate is planning a large celebratory party for Saturday, postponed from their 40th because Geoff needed emergency heart surgery.

A letter has come this day, Monday, for Geoff. It’s in German, and he not only needs the German/English dictionary to translate everything, he needs a bit of help even remembering where the dictionary is. But the key words are understood almost at once. “They found her body,” Geoff tells his wife. “They found my Katya.”

Katya was Geoff’s girlfriend years before he met Kate. While they were on a hiking vacation in Switzerland, Katya fell to her death through a fissure in a glacier. Now, because of global warming, all the snow covering that glacier has melted away and Katya’s body is visible for the first time. “She’s like something in the freezer,” Geoff says, not quite believing it. “She looks like she did in 1962, and I look like this.”

Kate has known about Katya, but only in the vaguest way, not with all the previously unspoken details that gradually pour unbidden out of Geoff. And she’s not prepared (and neither is Geoff for that matter) for how emotional the news makes him, for how involved he becomes in reliving the past and a relationship that has not existed for half a century.

The eventful specifics of how this dynamic plays out in the context of what has previously been a strong and stable marriage, with Geoff in the grip of buried feelings he forgot he had and Kate increasingly distressed and worried while attempting to carry on, is best left discovered in the film.

Just as, in Geoff’s words, “a fissure, I suppose you’d call it, like a narrow crack in the rock” opened to swallow Katya, so a fissure in this marriage threatens to swallow both participants without a trace. This is superb yet restrained drama of the highest order, definitely not to be missed.

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------------

‘ 45 Years’

MPAA rating: None

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Playing: Laemmle’s Royal, West Los Angeles

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What goes into making a marriage last? “Who the fuck knows” seems to be the astute answer provided by 45 Years , a sublimely acted, ruefully funny and quietly devastating take on the topic from the gifted British writer-director Andrew Haigh ( Greek Pete, Weekend ). Geoff Mercer (Tom Courtenay) and his wife Kate (Charlotte Rampling) are a childless couple enjoying their retirement in the Norfolk countryside and planning a party for their 45th anniversary.

Then the bomb drops. Geoff receives word that that the body of Katia, the German girlfriend of his youth, has been found perfectly preserved in a Swiss glacier where she went missing a half-century ago while they were on a hiking trip. Suddenly, the scenes of puttering, hard-won contentment that make up Geoff and Kate’s marriage and still-active sex life are jolted into an unwelcome reassessment. Geoff starts smoking again and thinks of returning to Switzerland. And Kate, forced to compete with an idealized dead girl, finds jealousy nagging. She digs around trying to find out about this mystery girl and how and why Geoff transferred his feelings from Katia to her. Everyone struggles to maintain a very British reserve — unsuccessfully.

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Based on David Constantine’s 2005 short story In Another Country , 45 Years moves inexorably inside the heads of these two people just as they are forced to wear a public mask that says happy together. Good luck with that. 45 Years casts a hell of a spell. And Courtenay and Rampling reward the film with performances of uncommon subtlety and feeling. Courtenay, 78, brings memories of his robust youth in such 1960’s films as The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Billy Liar and Dr. Zhivago . And here, revealing the concessions Geoff must make to age and its ills, Courtenay uncovers one man’s secret heart.

Still, Rampling, 68, is the film’s crowning glory. Her past roles are indelible, from the femme fatales she played in Georgy Girl, The Night Porter, Stardust Memories and The Verdict to her later triumphs in the French films Under the Sand and Swimming Pool . In 45 Year s, Rampling shows us everything a true actress can do without a hint of excess or a single wasted motion. Near the end, the camera lingers on a shattered Kate as she stands alone in a crowd surrounded by friends and festive music. Haigh lets us read the story of the film on her face. Rampling crowds a lifetime of experience into this one close-up. The effect is killer. So is 45 Years , a mesmerizer that will creep into your dreams whether you let it or not.

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Summary There is just one week until Kate Mercer's (Charlotte Rampling) 45th wedding anniversary and the planning for the party is going well. But then a letter arrives for her husband (Tom Courtenay). The body of his first love has been discovered, frozen and preserved in the icy glaciers of the Swiss Alps. By the time the party is upon them, f ... Read More

Directed By : Andrew Haigh

Written By : Andrew Haigh, David Constantine

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A group of lifelong friends gathers together at a friend's brownstone apartment, all battle-scarred from their experiences in the recently-ended Second World War (as the title "Brooklyn 45" makes clear). They have all done things in wartime they are not proud of, and they all suffer emotional/physical trauma. They have been summoned by their friend Clive ( Larry Fessenden ), whose wife died by suicide just a month before. After the catching-up chit-chat, he springs a request: He would like to host a séance to make contact with his dead wife. He's been reading up on the occult, and believes in the scientific veracity of the sources. His friends, practical military people, are resistant and skeptical, but he insists: they must help him. They must!

This is the premise of Ted Geoghegan ’s latest movie. "Brooklyn 45" takes place entirely on one set, the front room of the brownstone, and it unfolds in real time like a play. Billed as a supernatural horror film, "Brooklyn 45," which Geoghegan also wrote, is more than a strict genre label would suggest. Ghosts and spirits appear, and weird things are indeed summoned, but "Brooklyn 45" is really a meditation on grief and the unfinished business of war as experienced by a group who struggle with adjusting to peacetime. After facing the horrors of Nazi-occupied Europe, how are they supposed to just go back to normal life? After four years of viewing all Germans as Nazis, it's hard to just turn that off.

Marla ( Anne Ramsay ), injured by a bomb explosion, was one of the military's most feared and respected Nazi interrogators. She just married Bob ( Ron E. Rains ), a meek-and-mild man sneered at by the rest of the men for his lack of combat experience. Archie ( Jeremy Holm ) is an intimidating tree trunk of a man, a war hero whose reputation is tarnished by accusations of a terrible and unforgivable war crime. There will be a trial. The ends don't justify the means, after all. Archie is gay, and openly so, tolerating the ribbing he gets about it from his friend Paul ( Ezra Buzzington ), an upright military commander, still in uniform, and still suspicious of all "Krauts." Nazis lurk in every corner, and Paul has suspicions about the German-American woman who runs a grocery store down the street ( Kristina Klebe ). Apparently, Clive's dead wife shared Paul's paranoia and spent her final days obsessed with Nazi spies hiding out in America, hiding out on her block.

Geoghegan and his ensemble cast dig into all this thorny complexity instead of running away from it or ironing it out into a black-and-white binary. Each character is wracked by moral ambiguity and ethical compromise to some degree. Marla is now a happy wife, yet the ghost of her interrogator self—she freely used torture—hovers around her. Archie maintains his upright hero persona, but his reputation has taken a hit. He's ashamed of himself and can't admit it. During the war, Paul's constant rage had a socially acceptable space to express itself. Now, without an enemy, he is lost. And Clive is a wreck. Larry Fessenden has been doing excellent, nuanced work for years (I loved him in the recent " Jakob's Wife "), and his torment in "Brooklyn 45" is almost difficult to watch. Drowning in alcohol, ravaged by grief, he is the center around which the rest swirl with worry, irritation, and terror at what his séance has unleashed.

The script could use some trimming. The run-time is a bit bloated, and it takes a while to get things going. But this isn't 100% a negative (it gives you time to get to know the characters). The friendship bond is palpable. You feel the affection and closeness. This is crucial in establishing the story's emotional structure. "Brooklyn 45" is a ghost story, yes, but the ghost isn't just Clive's dead wife summoned from the beyond. It's the ghost of innocence, of ideals, of certainty, the ghost of who they were before the war as opposed to who they are now. With no enemy left to fight, they're all lost.

"Hitler's dead. You're fighting a pile of ashes!" one of them exclaims.

How to live with this knowledge is easy for some, impossible for others. What we're seeing, ultimately, is combat trauma managed by alcohol and denial. "Brooklyn 45" has its scare shocks and jolts of terror, its confrontation with unexplainable phenomena, but its interest lies in the psychological and emotional, and Geoghegan has created a space where all of it can be looked at, or run from, acknowledged or denied. The pile of ashes is a mile high.

On Shudder now.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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'Gunner' Review: Are We Sure Morgan Freeman Wasn’t Actually Kidnapped for This Action Movie?

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The Big Picture

• Luke Hemsworth is trying but has nothing of substance to work with.
• Gunner feels like a movie that spent 90% of its effort in post-production.
• The experience sets back action genre gunplay to the PlayStation 2 era.

Filmmaker Dimitri Logothetis wasted talents like Nicolas Cage , Tony Jaa , and Frank Grillo on 2020's astonishingly dismal Jiu Jitsu — what hope was there to believe he'd rebound with a Luke Hemsworth vehicle? Gunner is a sauceless actioner in the vein of '80s and '90s pulverizers, where inept henchmen are fed to a macho hero who explodes things. Don't be fooled by Morgan Freeman 's supporting role — Gunner is not on the acclaimed actor's level ( blink twice if you've been kidnapped, Mr. Freeman). The dialogue is cringy even by Universal Soldier sequel standards, performances more wooden than Pinocchio , and combat showpieces are a shambles of digital effects that spike not even a tingle of bruised and bloodied excitement.

Gunner (2024)

Gunner follows Lee Gunner, a determined father who must rescue his sons, Luke and Travis, from a dangerous drug gang. As he battles against the gang's formidable leader, Kendrick Ryker, Gunner's mission becomes a high-stakes struggle for survival and family unity.

What Is 'Gunner' About?

Hemsworth plays decorated Afghanistan veteran Lee Gunner (lol), who's just returned home to Clinton, where he tends his wife Clarie's ( Yulia Klass ) bar. Rowdy bikers and drug dealers hang around the establishment, doing business or throwing knives at dart boards. Lee smacks the snot out of some miscreants one night after they overstep , which means retaliation. While Lee's camping with his two sons, teen-angsty Travis ( Connor DeWolfe ) and littlest Luke ( Grant Feely ), plus their Uncle Jon ( Barry Jay Minoff ), the group stumbles upon a Fentanyl pushing operation. Uncle Jon dies, Lee's kids are taken, and the only one who can stop them is … well, the guy named Lee Gunner.

Logothetis and co-writer Gary Scott Thompson pen a dull script using only genre clichés. Gunner is one of those "drink if you've seen this before" movies, except if you obeyed said rule, you'd be a 30-rack deep before intermission. You'll sample hits like The Sacrificial Family Member, The Bullheaded Supervising Agent, and The Invincible Protagonist like there's a template to follow. The film's foundation is a vulture-picked skeleton of an already anemic shoot-'em-up's corpse . Logothetis' genre vocabulary is repetitive and unrefined, cobbled together from stereotypes abused for decades.

Gunner is an unsightly mess, no matter what filmmaking aspect you analyze . Green screen backgrounds implement abysmal color correction, failing to fool anyone with faked driving scenes. Ammunition streaks and muzzle blasts resemble Adobe After Effects aberrations rushed through creation because the artist's subscription was running out. Then there are the absurd edit cuts to ridiculous skydiving instances, remarkably unrealistic helicopters, and even character stuntwork that's substituted for Z-grade digital junk. Logothetis' team had better have struggled with both funds and timing because otherwise, there's no excuse for what reads like a rough draft on camera.

'Gunner' Is an Action Movie Completely Lacking in Imagination

Maybe with better action chops, adrenaline junkies could see past the atrocious "story" development — but that's not Gunner . There's nothing imaginative beyond point-and-blast mundanity outside an early pub scuffle when Lee uses the dartboard to bash some leather-clad thugs. Where John Wick wields his blasters like a brush that paints artistic brutality, Lee Gunner boasts the pageantry of a shooting range dummy . Logothetis ignite a few fireballs when things go ka-boom, but even that mimics a child's playset in comparison. Everything feels like a prototype never developed past notebook sketches, but production went forward anyway. There's a very churn and burn quality to Logothetis' style, which to call underwhelming is a drastic understatement.

The thing is, Hemsworth isn't even to blame — the eldest brother is handed material written on a napkin. Lee Gunner is a D-List, Redbox-ass soldier boy who waves his medals of honor and squints his way through lines that would make three-movies-in Rambo blush. Mykel Shannon Jenkins is playing this fledgling daddy's-boy villain with this maybe intentionally hilarious laugh, so bad that every time Dobbs Ryker cackles, it halts what little momentum exists. You get the sense that Logothetis tries to inject humor into Gunner , but the film's inauthenticity renders choices like Ryker's guffawing exceptionally out of place. The same can be said about Freeman's usage in small doses because even he seems perplexed by the film's inept tone while in character. Then again, maybe Jenkins is just trying to find any pulse of life because the rest of the cast deliver their lines like lifeless zombies.

Dig real deep, and you might unearth a redeeming quality in Gunner — but it's not worth the effort. Logothetis is asleep at the wheel, resulting in shoddily edited shootouts set to public domain tracks that are more out of place than God himself showing up for a bit part . Cinematography wavers in quality depending on if there's a location to shoot on, pacing skips like bumping into a record player, and whatever reverence Logothetis tries to show in that final scene towards American armed service members dies on the vine. Forget Gunner holding a candle to Jack Reacher because this movie desperately grasps at "watchable" status. You've seen this configuration of forgettable action nonsense before, and it's been better almost every time.

Gunner is a gross misuse of resources in an action movie that can’t even muster competent filmmaking techniques, resulting in a hideous bore of digitized shootouts and soulless performances built for the bargain bin.

• Morgan Freeman got paid (hopefully).
• Luke Hemsworth tries to salvage some fun as a vengeful father.
• Take your pick of criticisms. they're all valid.
• It's an action movie with no action spectacles to brag about.
• The entire thing scrapes the bottom of the barrel and feeds you the scraps.

Gunner is now available to stream on VOD in the U.S.

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Alien: Romulus

While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

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• Trivia Director Fede Alvarez sought out the special effects crew from Aliens (1986) to work on the creatures. Physical sets, practical creatures, and miniatures were used wherever possible to help ground later VFX work.
• Goofs When the characters first enter the space station, the artificial gravity briefly turns on and then off again. Shortly thereafter, they enter a room where several objects are hovering in mid-air. If the objects had momentum immediately after the gravity switched off they should be moving on a trajectory, and if not they should still be against the floor. Either way, they should not be unmoving several feet off the floor.

Andy : The solution for a claustrophobic astronaut is to give him more space.

• Crazy credits The 20th Century Studios fanfare freezes and turns ominous, as in Alien³ (1992) , leading into the film's opening scene. The logo itself suffers a burst of static and turns green.
• Connections Featured in Nerdrotic: The Acolyte: Force is Female CONFIRMED? The Death of Theaters - The Real BBC @MauLer @HeelvsBabyface (2024)
• Soundtracks Theme from Alien Written by Jerry Goldsmith

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• August 16, 2024 (United States)
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• Quái Vật Không Gian: Romulus
• Origo Studios, Budapest, Hungary
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• $80,000,000 (estimated)
• $42,003,361
• Aug 18, 2024
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Alien: romulus officially unites the entire alien movie franchise after 45 years.

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Alien: Romulus Ending Explained

8 reasons alien: romulus' reviews are so positive, alien: romulus’ new xenomorph explained: origin, differences, & future.

• Alien: Romulus unites the entire Alien franchise for the first time, bridging the gap between the original series and the prequels.
• By connecting elements from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, Alien: Romulus improves the cohesion of the entire franchise storyline.
• The success of Alien: Romulus in uniting the franchise opens up new possibilities for future Alien sequels to explore unresolved storylines.

The Alien franchise has been divided for years now, but Alien: Romulus has officially united the entire franchise after 45 years. With the exception of the original Alien and Aliens , every other Alien movie has been fairly divisive, with the franchise constantly having to change plans in order to please audiences. This is why the cliffhanger endings of Alien: Resurrection and Alien: Covenant were never resolved, which was a big disappointment for some. However, Alien: Romulus has surprisingly found the perfect balance between each Alien saga, managing to fit everything together in a fantastic way.

Alien: Romulus is finally out, and the newest Alien sequel has a lot more franchise and lore surprises than many viewers initially guessed. Throughout Alien: Romulus ' marketing, the film seemed like a return to tradition for the Alien franchise, with it being closer to Ridley Scott's 1979 original than anything else. This seemed as if it was a response to the mixed reception and box office disappointments of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant . However, Alien: Romulus ' unique place in the Alien timeline allowed for the film to pull off one major trick, uniting the entire Alien franchise for the first time.

Alien: Romulus' ending leaves the door open for another entry in the franchise. We break down the Alien sequel's final moments & what might come next.

Alien: Romulus Directly Links Ridley Scott's Prequels To The Original Movies

Through the return of the black goo.

Upon the release of Prometheus , Ridley Scott promised a multi-movie prequel series that would eventually link up to the original Alien 's point in the timeline. While Alien: Covenant did continue this plan, connecting more Prometheus elements to the original Alien , the 2017 film was still set years before the 1979 movie and focused on entirely different characters. With the announcement that Alien: Romulus would depart from these Prometheus plans, it seemed as if Alien: Covenant 's cliffhanger ending would never be solved. However, this wasn't entirely the case, with Alien: Romulus bringing back a big Prometheus storyline.

Despite Alien: Romulus taking place between Alien and Aliens , the film brings back the black goo from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant . The film reveals Weyland-Yutani discovered the black goo while experimenting on the Xenomorph from the original Alien , with the company hoping to use it to evolve humanity. This is incredibly similar to David's plan from Alien: Covenant , and while it doesn't feature any of the characters from the Prometheus saga, the use of this Prometheus story proves that Alien: Romulus has definitively linked the prequels to the original franchise.

Alien: Romulus’ reviews are in, with critics describing Álvarez’s film as the best Alien movie since James Cameron’s Aliens and a return to the form.

Alien: Romulus' Connections To Other Alien Movies Improves The Franchise

Prometheus feels more connected now.

Although Alien: Romulus carrying on plot points from Prometheus and Alien: Covenant may be controversial to some, these connections actually improve the franchise. For years now, the Alien franchise has felt segmented, with the original series and the prequel series having two entirely different tones, stories, and bits of lore. While the Prometheus movies are good, they just didn't feel like the original Alien , mostly due to how different things like the black goo and David's villain arc were.

By taking Prometheus elements and directly inserting them later in the Alien timeline, Alien: Romulus has made the entire franchise seem like a more cohesive whole . Alien: Romulus directly explains how the black goo affected the events of the first Alien and its sequels, making Prometheus seem as if it had more of an impact. While there are still some lingering questions, Alien: Romulus makes the Alien franchise seem like a more complete saga, which is the best thing that it could have done.

Alien: Romulus introduces a new Xenomorph to the long-running franchise, and it's one of the most frightening additions to the series in ages.

Alien: Romulus Uniting The Franchise Is Great For Alien's Future

Other alien storylines could come back.

Alien: Romulus ' decision to unite the franchise is great, as it could have positive impacts on the future of the Alien series. Bringing back the Prometheus story element means that future Alien sequels could do the same thing for other less-well-received Alien films. Things like the prison from Alien 3 or the cliffhanger ending from Alien: Resurrection could return , further ironing out the wrinkles in the Alien franchise.

On top of that, an Alien: Romulus sequel could continue building on the story of the Prometheus prequels . One of the biggest disappointments of the prequel series was that Alien: Covenant 's cliffhanger ending was left unresolved. However, Michael Fassbender's David and his evil plan to create the original Xenomorph could be further explored in an Alien: Romulus sequel, with Weyland-Yutani attempting to discover the origins of the black goo. There is all kinds of potential for the future now, and it is all thanks to Alien: Romulus ' attempts to unite the franchise.

Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus is the seventh film in the Alien franchise. The movie is directed by Fede Álvarez and will focus on a new young group of characters who come face to face with the terrifying Xenomorphs. Alien: Romulus is a stand-alone film and takes place in a time not yet explored in the Alien franchise.

Shonen Jump Announces Surprise Return of Hunter x Hunter

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After nearly two years of being on indefinite hiatus, Hunter x Hunter , the popular action-adventure manga series by author and illustrator Yoshihiro Togashi, is set to make a return to Weekly Shonen Jump in 2024.

Via Shonen Jump's Jump Press program, Hunter x Hunter was revealed to be returning in Weekly Shonen Jump Issue 45. Its new chapter will be released on Oct. 7, 2024 . This marks Togashi's return to publishing for the first time since his hiatus after Chapter 400 of Hunter x Hunter in December 2022.

Hunter x Hunter's Gon Teams Up With Goku in Official Dragon Ball Anniversary Artwork

Hunter X Hunter creator Yoshihiro Togashi reveals his crossover-style entry for Dragon Ball's 40th Anniversary Super Gallery Event.

Yoshihiro Togashi's Hunter x Hunter Finally Returns With New Chapter in October 2024

This follows the announcement that Hunter x Hunter will also get its first new volume release since 2022 , spanning 208 pages of previously released chapters. The past few months have marked one of Togashi's most active periods since his latest break; he shared that he had finished Chapter 402 in late July, immediately following this with the announcement that Chapter 403 was completed just 24 hours later.

VIZ licenses Hunter x Hunter in North America, with the series available to read on MANGA Plus and the Shonen Jump app. The first volume is officially described: "Gon might be a country boy, but he has high aspirations. Despite his Aunt Mito's protests, Gon decides to follow in his father's footsteps and become a legendary Hunter. The Hunter hopefuls begin their journey by storm-tossed ship, where Gon meets Leorio and Kurapika, the only other applicants who aren't devastated by bouts of seasickness. Having survived the terrors of the high seas, Gon and his companions now have to prove their worth in a variety of tests in order to find the elusive Exam Hall. And once they get there, will they ever leave alive...?"

Hunter X Hunter

Gon Freecss aspires to become a Hunter, an exceptional being capable of greatness. With his friends and his potential, he seeks out his father, who left him when he was younger.

Source: Jump Press

• Shonen Jump