The Sea

Well it was kinda complicated for me. It wasn't that good and u can find better movies easily. Ngl I've watched it cause of Bonnie Wright. If u have much time watch it.

By lil' I mean not too many characters, so the few shown kindled a spark in the viewer to the warm and sensitive nature of the ones shewed. The background kept harking back to a grey and gloomy setting while in its stead we are back in the present and things look colorful and teeming with delicious flavor. The pall that seems to mingle with the theme really never is truly diminished yet the candor of the story really shines through and gives you a joyful almost singular start. You really want to see what this is all about but not so much you want to escape from the protagonists sojourn into his own profound escape. I just get a sense that things didn't pan out the way he hoped but in the bargain he seemed to get a lot more. Very introspective, very cold and bleak at times while others the moment seems to linger and resonate with all that is living in the moment. One line that strikes and jolts one out of apathy and self-imposed resignation, when his wife tells him, 'You are always living in the past'. It seems he was always so worried about all the possible things that could happen he sometimes forgot to simply let go and really give it your all in the nonce. The scenery was ample and sweet warming me at times and at others giving me slight chills; the score was eerie at moments and others it really tugged at my heartstrings pulling me thither and hither, whilst all the ancillary characters enriched the natural progression of the plot with stylistic courses; and finally a culminating to a glorious ending which for some reason seems to be the very beginning of the protagonist... Cool flix, recommend it.

It is difficult to believe that this is the first feature film directed by Stephen Brown (whoever he is, as nothing is recorded of him on IMDb). Brown shows unmistakable signs of being a master even though he is so new. At the beginning of his directorial career, he is already far ahead of so many directors who have been at it for years. Since it cannot be experience, it must be talent. The screenplay is written by John Banville, based on his own novel. Banville comes from County Wexford in Ireland, where this film was entirely set and shot on location on the Wexford coast, which is on the eastern side of Ireland, facing Wales across the Irish Sea. Indeed, it will surprise no one that it was made on the Wexford coast, considering the title of the film and that the sea is in a way the central character in the story. The lead in the film is played by the actor Ciaran Hinds. I wish I knew how to pronounce his Irish first name, but until corrected, I shall call him 'Kieran' when speaking. He has appeared in 91 films and is well known as a supporting actor. But here he gives a bravura performance in a lead role, finely judged, perfectly modulated, and shows what stuff he is really made of. He clearly always had it in him, and at last he got to prove it. Well done, Hinds! He is well supported by Sinead Cusack, Charlotte Rampling, Rufus Sewell, and the dazzling Natascha McElhone, with a smile made of sunlight (and often shot in it). Cusack is filmed dying of cancer, and it takes a brave actress devoted to her craft to allow herself to look like that, and to speak wistful lines with ironical humour at the same time. Rampling, the master of the inscrutable, is, well you guessed it, inscrutable. Her last line in the film makes quite an impact, though before she spoke it, I had guessed. Sewell is called upon to play a rather flippant fellow, and has no trouble in doing so. A great deal of the film takes the form of flashbacks, and the child actors in the film are very good: Matthew Dillon plays Young Max (Hinds being old Max), and Missy Keating plays the girl twin, but I fear I am unsure of the name of the boy who plays the boy twin, as these two characters are not named on the IMDb cast list. The film and Hinds are haunted by the most bizarre and horrible tragedy, and an air of ravaging nostalgia is evoked brilliantly by the director. The main action of the film takes place after the death of his wife (Cusack), when Hinds revisits a seaside town on the Wexford coast, where he had had the memorable experiences of his youth, which shaped his entire life. We see these experiences and events in vivid flashbacks, and we come to understand fully why they have haunted Hinds for the rest of his life. The film is not a cheerful one, and anyone feeling depressed, or grieving, should probably not watch it. For those who can survive watching a film with a great deal of sadness in it, it is the equivalent of a major literary work, and of course it is derived from a novel scripted by the novelist himself, so it retains all of its high literary qualities, which are so well served by the director. It is certainly a high point in Irish cinema. I await the next work by Stephen Brown with great expectations. As for John Banville, he has been producing important work for the cinema for some time now. He did the excellent screenplay for THE LAST September (1999, see my review), for ALBERT NOBBS (2011), and for the excellent Irish TV series QUIRKE, based on his own novel (2014, see my forthcoming review). He has also worked with the talented Irish director Thaddeus O'Sullivan (writing SEASCAPE, 1994), who directed the amazing THE HEART OF ME (2002, see my review) as well as the superb series SINGLE-HANDED (2010, see my review). Those creative Irish can get up to things, and we had better keep on our eye on them. And now there is a new one, Stephen Brown, to watch out for.

This film adaptation of John Banville's book by the same name, is irritatingly compelling and ultimately lacklustre in a really intriguingly enjoyable kind of way… that probably doesn't make sense right now, but by the end of the film you'll understand, or at least begin to understand – much like the plot of the film, which starts off slow but builds to a very pleasing climax.

Initially it's somewhat up and down - getting lost in its own narrative at times, with no clear intention of where the story's heading. Once we become invested in the characters they begin to reveal the humanity of the story which is a very emotional recounting of the glory of past life experiences, and the harrowing reality of the progression of life for our main character, Max Morden.

Beautiful warm and cold colour grades serve to separate the cheerful, innocent flashbacks from the much bleaker present day narrative. Every image and colour is used effectively to add to the story, and coupled with engaging performances from every actor present, this makes for a seamless viewing experience that's unique and enjoyable – although somewhat slow in its pacing at times. Where the film really struggles is in its efforts to manage the various narrative strands and how they play with each other. Unfortunately, it fails to uphold each strand all the time – sometimes leaving you wishing that the next flashback could come sooner, rather than later.

Simplicity is at the foundation of any creation, and it's from there you build on the layers to develop the project – "The Sea" skipped a few levels and tried to accomplish too much in its narrative at times, and while ultimately a simple, very well made film, it loses focus and dips too often to maintain the fantastic tone it sets for itself.

Man Booker Prize-winning novels are too hard to adapt, and except for a few hits like Schindler's List (1993) and Life of Pi (2012), all adaptations are either dull or totally a mess. This tragic drama is one such non-electrifying film.

Max Morden (Ciarán Hinds) is an aged art historian who has come back to the seaside place where he used to spend his vacations as a child. He is currently grieving the loss of a loved one and is also hoping to find peace from a childhood incident which made him the way he is now. The story follows Morden's life as flashbacks of his time with his newfound friends, a twin siblings, flip flop between the episodes of present tense.

Hinds is the only aspect of the film which is appealing. The supporting characters are too abrupt in their approach, making the film look like it was conceived for people who have already read the book. Even for those who have, the lackluster, non-linear screenplay will induce ennui, just enough to put them to sleep if they are not startled by the sudden, repetitive crescendos towards the end. Banville clearly fails as a scriptwriter, trying to correct some of his novel's mistakes by adding extra salt to the already salty water. Brown's direction is also at fault, as the cast often look puzzled in their own characters' skins. The young actor who plays a young Morden is terrible.

The Sea is an average book exploring loss and grief and how a man tries and miserably fails to fix up his life post the events. The film is a lot less convincing, mostly because the sliding sequences just do not bring about any point that the author might have originally tried to convey. Read the book and move on to Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss".

BOTTOM LINE: Stephen Brown's "The Sea" is a lowbrow adaptation of a lowbrow fiction which can be best understood by reading its original source. Wait for TV premiere.

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? NO