Kate and Geoff (Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay) live a comfortable retired life in rural England. She is active and sharply intelligent, he, a few years older and slowed by the heart bypass op which had forced cancellation of their 40th anniversary celebrations, seems more ponderous in mind and body.
A few days before the big party to celebrate 45 years since their wedding, arranged to make up for that 40th disappointment, Geoff receives a letter from Switzerland informing him that the body of a girl has been discovered in a glacier and he is next of kin. This comes as a major surprise to Kate who was unaware that he had had such an intense relationship prior to theirs. Geoff shrugs it off as all in the past, revealing little, but in the days that follow the memory of that time is obviously occupying his mind, and Kate feels forced to question him, and do a little snooping of her own, to learn more of the truth.
Out of the blue the world she felt sure of has been undermined and secrets and suspicions fracture the relationship that had seemed so secure. Had all their lives together been based on lies?
There is reconciliation, a determination that the long planned party should go off well. And it is at the party that the film ends. Geoff, flooded with emotion and convinced all will be well, Kate unable to quite shake off the conviction that all has changed. The viewer is left to make up their own mind as to what may happen next, and, if the marriage can continue, on what terms?
The pace is slow, the anxiety builds gradually, and there is real tension in anticipating how the party will unfold, as well as posing questions we all recognise. How well can you ever know the person you share your life with? How little does it take for the cracks to appear? Can we sometimes invest too much of our own identity in our relationships? And just how much does your partner's past, from before you knew them, have relevance to your own life?
Visually there is nothing much to get excited over, this is all about the writing and the acting. Rampling is outstanding as a the woman unsettled when her foundations crumble, and her eyes reveal a character taken unawares by her own reactions and uncertain of which way she will turn. A humane and deeply emotional film.
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