The Deep Blue Sea

R

Released Mar 23, 2012

1 hr. 38 min.

Drama

Romance

List

81%

145 Reviews

Tomatometer

52%

10,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Flashbacks reveal the destructive love affair between the wife (Rachel Weisz) of a British judge and a rakish RAF pilot (Tom Hiddleston).

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Critics Consensus

Featuring an outstanding performance by Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea is a visually stunning, melancholy tale of subsumed passion.

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Jennifer M

Very great acting, in this movie. I am happy I found it on Amazon. Great Chemistry to.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/14/23

Full Review

Gareth v

This stage play adaption starring the underrated Weisz, is a bit of a drag at times but okay. The tale of being attracted to the shiny new toy.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

06/19/23

Full Review

ken l

The talent in this movie was enticing, but the script and direction and everything else about it was nothing short of horrible. The plot was terrible and made no sense. The filmography was rather dismal as well, with odd choices on lighting and camera angles. There are scenes in this movie that either do nothing to advance the story, or carry on far too long for the limited information that they convey (the people signing in the subway tunnel during the German bombing in a flashback scene comes to mind). Do yourself a favor, and just randomly pick any other movie ever made, and you will probably see a better movie than this steaming pile of monkey poo.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

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Audience Member

Felt like it was written for the stage and not for film. Poorly adapted for film, which is a pity as the acting is first rate.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/22/23

Full Review

Ken R

The Deep Blue Sea – Nearly Impenetrable Take a respected play, some good actors, a good director and come up with a 1 ½ hour movie that looks and feels like double its length. Director Terence Davies (The House of Mirth) I might have thought worthy of carrying out this exercise - seemed to be having a bad year turning out this lethargic result. Maybe he fiddled with Terrance Rattigan's play a little too much? I enjoy a pensive period love story but shamefully found myself watching this slog, at times, in double speed! I'm sure some might enjoy this treatment but from the look of the miserable box-office returns not many. A story needs more than good performances to carry it along and it would have helped if some of the sequences had been photographed without the dreary Fog Filter permanently attached. Samuel Barber's Violin concerto is lovely but perhaps an unsuited choice for such a dead-slow movie as this. Here we have a woman that thousands of women would ever so gladly swap places with – a well above average, extremely comfortable home, steady secure income - OK little or no passion--but she did choose this marriage herself. She then enters into an affair with a wildly immature, damaged soul, who proceeds to treat her abysmally! - pushing her life into several attempts at suicide...all this time she simply puts up with an un-liveable situation. Punish yourself if you must but please spare some thought for the audience along the way.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

04/11/21

Full Review

Audience Member

Shallow Blue Sea I don't doubt that Terence Davis is a brilliant writer and director and of all people has a real feel for the era of the Deep Blue Sea – post war austerity, two shilling gas meters, bedsits and so on (see in particular the wonderful "The Long Day Closes", or "Distant Voices, Still Lives".) But this film is a shocker. This is a play adaptation, an intense tragedy about the need for physical love and the awfulness when it is virtually the only thing lovers have. Davis has pointlessly introduced pub sing-songs, big budget recreations of post-blitz London, and worse, strange new scenes and stilted, pointless dialogue, for no reason that I can possibly see, because the play is a masterpiece and needs no extra scenes or dialogue. It is a different kind of tragedy to see a talented writer/director acting as wrecking ball. Don't let this film put you off this amazing play. If you want to see a good adaptation, the BBC one of the 90s with Penelope Wilton, Colin Firth and Ian Holm is quite wonderful and is on YouTube.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/19/23

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Terence Davies

Director

Rachel Weisz

Hester Collyer

Simon Russell Beale

William Collyer

Tom Hiddleston

Freddie Page

Harry Hadden-Paton

Jackie Jackson

Ann Mitchell

Mrs. Elton

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Wendy Ide

Times (UK)

[A] deeply affecting adaptation of the acclaimed Terence Rattigan play...

Oct 23, 2023

Full Review

Stanley Kauffmann

The New Republic

Now a new film of the play appears, adapted and directed by Terence Davies with Rachel Weisz in that stellar [Hester Collyer] role and with Rattigan's work in a freshening treatment.

Jun 18, 2013

Full Review

David Thomson

The New Republic

The movie is an exquisite period piece, slow and dank, and unduly persuaded that it's rendering a classic.

Jun 17, 2013

Full Review

Wesley Lovell

Cinema Sight

...it has a stuffy air that dampens its thematic energy, which might help explain its lack of appreciation by American audiences

Rated: 3.5/4

Oct 10, 2023

Full Review

Keith Garlington

Keith & the Movies

It’s not a bold or extravagant picture but it’s a good one mainly due to two incredible performances by its leads.

Rated: 3.5/5

Aug 20, 2022

Full Review

Sean Axmaker

Stream on Demand

[Director Terence Davies] seems to have invested every frame of the film with his exhilaration of making movies once again as well as a bittersweet quality of regret for the films he never made. His direction is loving, intimate, and exquisite.

Jun 25, 2022

Full Review

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Synopsis

Flashbacks reveal the destructive love affair between the wife (Rachel Weisz) of a British judge and a rakish RAF pilot (Tom Hiddleston).

Director: Terence Davies
Executive Producer: Katherine Butler, Lisa Marie Russo, Norman Merry, Peter Hampden
Screenwriter: Terence Davies
Distributor: Music Box Films
Production Co: Artificial Eye Film, Protagonist Pictures, Camberwell / Fly Films, UK Film Council, Fulcrum Media Finance, Film4, Lipsync Productions
Rating: R (Nudity|A Scene of Sexuality)
Genre: Drama, Romance
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 23, 2012, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 21, 2013
Box Office (Gross USA): $1.1M
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

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