Midwinter Break
World-class acting by Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds undergirds this restrained look at a marriage teetering toward its finish.
Cinematic portraits of late-in-life love are somewhat rare, and rarer still is one that doesn’t belly-flop into easy cliches and predictable plots.
If you think about it, romantic movies featuring young people falling for each other are easier to make — because that’s where all the excitement and newness is. When a couple has been together for 30, 40, 50 years or more, there’s a sense that the story has already been told, and it’s just waiting for the right time to close the book.
“Midwinter Break” proves there’s plenty of surprises and shocks to be had for stories about old marrieds. It helps having two splendid thespians, Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds — both Oscar nominees — to undergird this restrained look at a marriage teetering toward its finish.
On the surface, it would seem that Stella and Gerry (Manville and Hinds) are happy enough. They’re both retired, seem to be in good health and spirits, have son and a grandchild and are hoping for more.
They’re Irish who have lived most of their lives in Glasgow, departing the Emerald Isle after a traumatic incident involving The Troubles. Things can’t be perfect, and they aren’t: Gerry drinks more than he ought and worse, strives to hide it from his wife; she is troubled that her mate doesn’t share her deep Catholic convictions and even tends to make light of them.
Still, when Stella surprises Gerry with a Christmas present of a trip to Amsterdam, they’re both absolutely delighted — a chance for a little adventure and perhaps a chance to rekindle their cooling ardor.
The first few days of the vacation go well enough: sightseeing, museums, pubs — even time for a little canoodling. They still enjoy each other’s company and would seem headed toward a quiet, comfortable old age.
But something has been troubling Stella for decades, and she has a hidden motive in coming to Amsterdam. Many years ago she visited the Begijnhof, a “secret village” of devout women found right in the heart of the city. They go back there for a tour and bump into Kathy (Niamh Cusack), who if you can believe it turns out to be Irish.
(Talk about the luck of.)
Stella surprises Gerry by talking about making a change in her life that would see her devote herself more fully to her faith. She hasn’t exactly worked out the details of what that will mean, but it’s implicit that it does not include Gerry. Needless to say he’s shocked, saddened and eventually grows angry. Some harsh words are passed, and he decamps to a bar to drown his woes.
Things go on from there, though you can probably guess this isn’t a plot-heavy sort of film. It’s directed by Polly Findlay from a screenplay by Nick Payne and Bernard MacLaverty.
It’s an actors’ kind of movie, driven entirely by its performances, the dialogue and capturing delicate moments just so. Mostly it’s a showcase for Manville and Hinds, and they do not disappoint.
Manville manages to make Stella a very empathetic character despite a tendency toward brittleness and non-communication — this is a woman grown expert at hiding her doubts and anger. As Gerry, Hinds lets us peak into the soul of a man who is jovial and gregarious on the outside, but masks a sense of self-loathing that is both the alpha and omega of his drinking.
It’s a slow-moving picture and I’m sure some people will find it a mite dull. Certainly as a younger man I might have counted myself in that frame of mind. Now that I’m closer to these characters’ ages than puppy love, I recognized the little eddies and moods of a longstanding relationship, the way people committed to each other nonetheless learn to navigate the dance of unspoken secrets and regret.
The title of course has dual meanings, referring both to the time of year in which the story takes place and the season through which Stella and Gerry are passing. They have reached the point where they will either break or cleave to each other forever, and how much more exciting is that than a standard meet-cute movie.