Rent 45 Years (2015)
3.3 of 5 from 596 ratings
1h 31min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Kate Mercer (Charlotte Rampling) is planning a party to celebrate her 45th wedding anniversary. One week before the celebration, however, a letter arrives for her husband, Geoff (Tom Courtenay), containing news that reawakens troubling and long-hidden memories. Though Kate continues to prepare for the anniversary, she becomes increasingly concerned by Geoff's preoccupation with the letter and the ensuing revelations about his past. By the time the party comes round, there may not be a marriage left to celebrate.
- Actors:
- Charlotte Rampling, Dolly Wells, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James, Hannah Chalmers, Richard Cunningham, David Sibley, Sam Alexander, Michelle Finch, Max Rudd, Peter Dean Jackson, Camille Ucan, Kevin Matadeen, Martin Atkinson, Lucy Temple, Rachel Banham, Elle Tivey, Paul Goldsmith, Charles Booth, Alexandra Riddleston-Barrett
- Directors:
- Andrew Haigh
- Producers:
- Tristan Goligher
- Writers:
- David Constantine, Andrew Haigh
- Studio:
- Artificial Eye Film Company Ltd.
- Genres:
- Drama, Romance
- Collections:
- 2016, A Brief History of Old Age on Screen: Part 1, Acting Up: British Actresses at the Oscars, Award Winners, CinemaParadiso.co.uk Through Time, A Brief History of Film...
- Awards:
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 11/01/2016
- Run Time:
- 95 minutes
- Languages:
- English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English LPCM Stereo
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.85:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Director and Producer Commentary
- Q&A with Cast and Crew
- Trailer
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Reviews (12) of 45 Years
Very slow, disappointing + boring French-style marriage drama - 45 Years review by PV
I wanted to like this film - I really did.
But it has to be one of the most boring, slow, tedious films I have ever watched. Only 90 minutes but feels like 3 hours! Pretty countryside though, in Norfolk (not usually in films so that was a plus).
I suspect the problem is that the writer/director is pretending to be French - and this has all the hallmarks of one of those pretentious Gallic movies that art students and Derrida-drone academics so adore.
It's based on a short story. I wonder if it's French? That would explain why a British student goes to Switzerland (no-one ever did that, not from his social class! The hippy trail or Spain, maybe).
This probably works better on the page, frankly - and should have been a radio or TV drama really.
The lead actors are wasted AND very VERY irritating at times. I just did not believe in them. The older man who, despite being very academic, speaking fluent German and reading tomes on philosophy, works in a factory (this makes me think the story has French roots). The slightly younger woman - with a very odd accent - who apparently can afford a mansion on a teacher's pension. Other plot holes include: the convenient lack of children (why not adopt); the unreasonably resentful wife (as if anyone expects their partner not to have been in love with anyone else before marriage); the twee pregnancy subplot.
If you want to watch a deep and meaningful film about grief then watch something like Philomena. This 45 years film is pretentious and so in love with itself (it thinks it is SO clever and profound, but really is not).
4 out of 6 members found this review helpful.
The Slowest Film Ever. - 45 Years review by CP Customer
We watched. We waited. We were sure the story would start sooner or later. Nope. Long shots of people walking across a field lasted for minutes? All the dialect was so slow and laboured that you are totally aware of the actors acting. You could have summed up the plot in 20 seconds. When it finished we looked at each other in disbelief.
4 out of 7 members found this review helpful.
Get a life - 45 Years review by BE
The acting was good but any psychological depth is beyond me on this one. The married couple presented as morose and crestfallen and to have slid into a life of dull routine without any levity. I suspect they may have retired too early from their working lives and being without children, had lost their raison d'être. If they had had a more fulfilling lifestyle, I doubt the husband would have been hankering after a lost love in his distant past or the wife questioning and pursuing his wish to do so. The husband was very irritating and being so introspective about his past, was alianating his wife's affection. The movie was very slow and I did not like the inconclusive ending as it gave no indication of how the relationship would fare after the party. I should have liked to see the wife up sticks, find a more meaningful life and leave her husband to wallow.
2 out of 3 members found this review helpful.
Critic review
45 Years review by Adrijan Arsovski - Cinema Paradiso
A subtle experiment on the psychology of human minds, accompanied by its charming, often times humorous leads -- 45 Years is an honest, captivating, multi-layered, true piece of cinema art par excellence. Its aesthetics perfectly mirror its story, where powerful, evocative meaning is implied by lack of visible expression, and scenes so well-crafted to outshine even the best of works regarding the intricacy of the human condition. Avoiding this particular piece would certainly stand out as a cardinal sin on everyone’s portfolio.
45 Years’ masterful visual storytelling is a spectacle, a latent one, with some scenes that now give me a pleasurable sensation of fright when I better come to think of it. It’s a film that stamps its message deeply into a viewer’s heart (by all means) and stirs all pre-established harmony in one’s body: a rare achievement of films of any kind. This adaptation of author David Constantine’s short story manages to breathe life into a seemingly nothing-out-of-our-ordinary affair of grief, nostalgia and the existentialism of love (Kierkegaard also gets a mention). It’s bigger than life, by all means appropriate.
Director Andrew Haigh uses clever camera angles and simple cinematography to a stunning effect – all scenes, while holding aesthetical value, tell their own little story of importance. Each frame is carefully chosen to add to the emotional decadence of actor Charlotte Rampling’s character, which needless to say – the actress deserves the Oscar. Her performance is so convincing and relatable, that a single glimpse into the perspectives she holds adds uneasiness under the skin of an observer. Think how everything you knew in your life by far, love-related or otherwise, turns out to be shaped and molded by a person you hardly knew, maybe even a non-existing one. It’s a troubled thought, an existential conundrum that no one, least of all the contemplating observer, can answer it.
One of the probably most important questions regarding retrograde jealousy lurks somewhere beneath the layers of 45 Years: can one’s life past by without knowing it’s meaningless? A sole thought wakes unpleasant body sensations, channeled by Charlotte Rampling terrific performance. 45 Years plays like an insidious affair of loss, regret and acceptance. To top even that: the final frame will break the hearts of even the most adamant of people.
The film’s weakest elements are the ones with Geraldine James on screen, but even those greatly surpass your ordinary cookie-cutter, artificial, overly-sentimental Hollywood drama. Simply put: this film has everything going right for it, which is nice.
To better think of it -- 45 Days is the best character-driven drama in the last 10 years or so, no competition.