The Deep Blue Sea 2011

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: It feels current. That's to do with the timelessness of Davies's idea of how lush a film can feel. It's also to do with the modernity of his star. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: The social and psychological particulars, and the wonderful period details, are part of the background. And Mr. Hiddleston and Mr. Beale, disciplined and sensitive actors though they are, exist in the penumbra of Ms. Weisz's incandescence. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: After only six fiction features, Davies has staked out a subterranean psychology: forwardly gay, openly torn and just short of miserable. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A story of passion and its aftermath; of what happens when an unhappy woman goes chasing after something shiny, only to find how quickly it fades. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Earns a place alongside Letter From An Unknown Woman and The Heiress, those beautiful romantic tragedies about women whose love curdles and rots when they get nothing in return. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: The best parts of the movie, like the scene with William's mother, involve isolated set pieces in which Weisz interacts with another actor. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: In scene after scene, painful pauses in conversation seem to amplify the incessant ticking of the clock in the room, a subtle reminder that time rolls onward and our brief lives are not to be frittered away. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: This is an extremely deft job of adaptation. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: In addition to Davies's visual style, the film benefits from precision acting from players who get the most out of Rattigan's dialogue. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It's a time machine of a movie; but who will want to take the trip? Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Passion defies reason in The Deep Blue Sea. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: Captures a very delicate sense of romantic decay. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Exceptionally well-made and completely fearless in its depiction of the widest range of romantic emotions, this is a film as fiercely committed to passion as its heroine, and that's saying a lot. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: That's the difficulty in warming up to The Deep Blue Sea: The first thing we see Hester do is foolish and inconceivable, which makes it hard to get invested in her future. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: The movie is an exquisite period piece, slow and dank, and unduly persuaded that it's rendering a classic. Read more

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. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Certainly stage-bound and dusty, but it's a perfect vehicle for Davies the aesthete/social critic. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Sombre and powerful. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Try to stay on board. Whenever it does briefly slip away, it carries you along on a wave. Read more

Jeannette Catsoulis, NPR: A shimmering exploration of romantic obsession and the tension between fitting in and flying free. Read more

David Edelstein, NPR: This is Rachel Weisz's movie. She's as luminous as a Pre-Raphaelite portrait, yet she brings to Hester a high-wire, modern tremulousness... Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Beale is moving as a good man who wants to understand his wife but cannot, while Hiddleston aptly captures the baffled resentment of a bachelor who's been dragged into someone else's melodrama. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: [Weisz] does a fine, understated job within the parameters of Davies' stripped-down adaptation. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: The Deep Blue Sea is uneven and somewhat tentative in its evocation of a certain kind of fading moss rose among English womanhood, but it's mature, sophisticated filmmaking that is so welcome I recommend it highly. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Weisz gives a heartbreaking performance; her Hester spirals into doom, hungry for the physical pleasures she has found. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The film feels pity for the exhausted city of London. The vast metropolis was the scene of greatness during World War II, but a few years later, it is drab, hungry and without optimism. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: In the face of Weisz's magnificence, it's impossible to dismiss The Deep Blue Sea as dated and creaky. Weisz makes it timeless. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Rachel Weisz - in what has to be the performance of her career, and there have been lots of good ones - plays an intelligent woman in the grip of a lust that's too big to handle or suppress. She can either ride the tiger or be devoured. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: [Weisz'] performance that transforms her from actress to movie star. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Davies doesn't provide stylish counterweights to the heavy drama. Any story that starts with a woman writing a suicide note is cheating us of an honest investment in the outcome. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: "It's difficult to judge when you're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea." So it is. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Director Terence Davies can paint melancholy and misery in as many shades as the Eskimos allegedly have words that mean "snow." Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: It's sad as a story and deeply evocative as a period piece, but it fails to take a grip on the heart in the same way that the very best of Davies's films do. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Hiddleston is good as the fickle playboy but Weisz, who smoulders as Hester, is better. Read more

Leslie Felperin, Variety: Davies is in fine form here, with luminous perfs, especially from Rachel Weisz, rounding out a classy package. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: Plumbing disquieting depth, Deep Blue Sea investigates the insoluble dilemma of romantic love: the expectation, contrary to experience, that we can or will find every quality that we want in a single person. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: Even as it settles a bit more comfortably into its story of romantic disillusionment, The Deep Blue Sea is marked by a kind of profound stasis of choice. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Maddeningly oblique and incomplete, despite paying what at times feels like excruciating attention to the minutiae of a dying love affair's final hours. Read more