Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated for 2015. Here's Manuel...
Who & What: Directed by Andrew Haigh (Weekend, HBO’s “Looking”). Starring Charlotte Rampling & Tom Courtenay. I actually love the succinct synopsis Haigh offers over at his own site: “A marriage is thrown into turmoil with news of a long dead lover,” though if you want a more detailed version it runs something like this: Kate, “who is in the middle of preparations for her 45th wedding anniversary when her husband Geoff receives the news that the body of his old girlfriend, who died 50 years earlier in a fatal accident in the Swiss Alps, has finally been found, frozen in ice and time. Geoff retreats into a distant world of memories while Kate endeavors to suppress her burgeoning jealousy and anxiety with pragmatism.”
Why We're Excited About it: After charming festivalgoers and indie film lovers with his quietly successful sophomore effort, Weekend and transitioning quite easily into cable television with the exquisite Looking (may I direct you to my recaps?), Haigh tackles slightly different territory with this film adaptation of David Constantine’s short story. It took Berlin by storm and won Rampling & Courtenay twinned Best Actress and Best Actor honors. Thus this went from a curio title to a highly anticipated one, the type of festival find that’s always a treat to anticipate.
What if it all Goes Wrong? Thankfully, this is one of the titles on our collective list that has already screened and from all the reviews out of Berlin it seems we have little to worry about, as they all point to another strong offering from Haigh, who might have found his stride as a keen filmmaker of quiet yet poignant revelations: “a quietly moving and deceptively tragic look at aging romance haunted by past mysteries," “a drama of quiet restraint," “The emotional disquiet builds like an orchestral crescendo from near-silence to a roar," “a quietly powerful study of a long-term marriage."
When: 28 August 2015 (UK Release) and we should be hopeful that a US release date will follow shortly thereafter. The film is being distributed by Sundance Selects, which managed Haigh’s Weekend.
Courtenay, Rampling & Haigh doing press in Berlin