Directed By Polly Findlay

Starring – Lesley Manville, Ciaran Hinds, Julie Lamberton

The Plot – A stirring meditation on faith, commitment, and the enduring power of love, as a longtime couple (Manville, Hinds) takes a life-changing trip to Amsterdam.

Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving alcoholism, some strong adult language, bloody images and suggestive material.

MIDWINTER BREAK – Official Trailer [HD] – Only In Theaters February 20

POSITIVES

Even the longest and most battle-tested couples contain secrets from one another that either threaten the very sanctity of their peaceful existence, or make them all the stronger for confronting them head on, and while Midwinter Break doesn’t settle for the typical fiery dramatic tirade that exaggeratedly breeds tension cinematically, instead opting for a quietly unassuming meditation in the depths of this inevitable confrontation, it does unload enough compelling elements to keep it from feeling tediously dull or lethargic in its storytelling, allowing for more of the exposition that pays off an audience in body language rather spoon-fed words and sentiments. This is where the film feels most connected to its literary origins, as not only does the film take an introspective delve into the very psychologies of these conflicted characters, that live and wither away with their various secrets between them, but it also appraises immense value among the psychology of their various interactions, with an overhanging heaviness atmospherically in first time stage-turned-screen director, Polly Findlay, unloading everything from resentment to remorse that couldn’t make the dynamic between Stella and Gerry feel any more complex. While the film undoubtedly revels in the lingering insecurities of what transpires between each during their most isolated of moments, it’s also not above articulating the firmly established connection between them that vividly conveys the extensive magnitude of their knowledgeable insights about one another, made all the more endearingly believable with the impeccably lived-in brand of authentic chemistry that Manville and Hinds lend to the candidness of their converging dynamic, where even the most simplistic assessment or off-handed comment could effortlessly conjure a dual meaning to the intent of the interpretation, in turn preheating the proverbial oven before the movie ever has a chance to cook at 400 degrees. This certainly allows ample opportunity for Manville and Hinds to make the performances their own, with the former bringing a constantly stinging captivity to her character’s unrelenting angst about the unresolved aspects from the past that weigh like a suffocating blanket on the transparency of her demeanor, and the latter weaponizing sarcastically unapologetic observations to cut like a knife towards the unforeseen vulnerabilities of Stella’s valued means of relieving escapism. In many ways, it feels like a dual performance for each of them, as their momentary time apart from one another does feel like it presents the most honest portrayal of the real people that Stella and Gerry are when they’re not keeping up a facade with one another, with the exhaled instances unearthing a lot of frail vulnerability towards the demons of their pasts that in many ways could wield comforting connection in the honesty of their shared experiences, but instead elicit this unforeseen elephant in the room that only further doubles in unshakeable presence the longer each of them refuse to confront what’s ailing them, and considering so much of Findlay’s direction feels plucked from the very stages of the theater, where she carved out a reputable name for herself, it allows Manville and Hinds the patience to truly radiate a duo of grand slam performances, standing as one of the two most impressive elements that this movie has going in its favor. The other is the meaningful framing cemented from Laurie Rose’s stunning cinematography, which surveils much of the coldly chilling and scenic dampness of Amsterdam’s wintry imagery to reflect the aching dejection of Stella and Gerry’s growing discontent with one another, surmising meaningfully layered shots that are judged by the distance that its characters feel every bit physically as they do emotionally.

NEGATIVES

While Midwinter Break forces Stella and Gerry to confront a lot of concealed truths about each one another, the movie’s most difficult one to overcome undoubtedly stems from the audience’s inability to grapple with the notion that even the best novels don’t always translate well to screen, especially considering this is such a quiet and introspective insight about two lovers at a crossroads with one another. It’s easy enough to label what transpires as flat without anything even close to a passionate release from either of them meant to pay-off the audience’s endurance throughout a deliberately dry and dramatically flat 85-minute runtime, but it’s more arduous when the script lends so many of its meaningfully limited minutes to scenes by and large outlining an unavoidable repetition to them, where the increasing tension of the couple doesn’t even percolate until around the movie’s midway point, and even then has just enough time to send it home into the final act. To say that the experience was a frustrating one would be an understatement, as not only does it keep the assorted histories of its characters at a grave distance from the interpretation of the audience, quite clumsily framing their biggest bombshells as a mystery that isn’t unknowing to the audience or even these characters, but it also leads to a neat and tidy resolution for the film’s ending that feels like a contrasting betrayal of everything that we’ve experienced with Stella to that point, and while imperfection is certainly a connective trait to any relationship, I never felt like where this film ended gave me the closure to accept each of them as changed and morally improving characters, leading much of the film’s closing notes to fall so flat with the intention of transparency being the movie’s connective tissue throughout its long-distance journey. In addition to a flatly numbing and stumbling screenplay, there are some equally clumsy cuts with the movie’s editing that rushes through some of the rare but valuable moments of the first-hand character building that we’re meant to interpret, particularly one involving Stella and an Amsterdam resident named Kathy, who in one short scene goes from being a randomized stranger on the street to being a valued source that Stella can open herself up towards. The problem is really in the timing of the execution, as not only does the scene share time with some clunky cutaway’s to Gerry emotionally wrapping himself up into listening to music, but the scene transpires with Kathy staring blankly at Stella, without offering a single response to her marital discourse, and whether as a means of attaining some semblance of urgency to an engagement that feels like the exact opposite of the word, or the scene’s intention meant to further convey the isolated loneliness that Stella feels, there’s simply never enough meat to the material or its finished cuts to ever sink my teeth into, a fact made all the funnier with the unintentionally hilarious bit of information that Stella finds out about Kathy’s religious covenant, which she somehow couldn’t figure out on the very computer that she used during the film’s opening moment to print out hers and Gerry’s tickets to Amsterdam. Finally, even Findlay’s limitations start to squander the connectivity to the engagement, as this once introspectively meditated storyteller conforms to her own lack of trust with her audience, leading her to ingest the movie with these vaguely foreshadowed flashbacks to Ireland, where the couple’s rocky foundation took shape with some ground-shaking conflicts that rocked them to their core. These sequences, while heavily-intentioned and unnecessary, could serve a purpose towards conjuring much of the emotionality that goes missing to the movie’s extensive outlining, however these sequences are enacted conceptually from knee level, gauzy, and visually incoherent, without anything that feels close to digestibility, and considering Findlay’s subtleties towards these character’s actions are among her most distinguished imprint to this movie’s integrity, these unsubtle deviations at convenient times feel like studio notes to the director’s lack of experience, making it feel as conflicted by the visual choices every bit as much as the storytelling ones.

OVERALL
Midwinter Break is a quietly introspective marital dissection that lacks the thoroughness or emotional expressionism to convince audiences of its appealing adaptability as the next big crossover from page to screen. Despite scintillatingly subdued performances from Lesley Manville and Ciaran Hinds lending some much-needed soul to this coldly underdeveloped and chillingly cantankerous escape from everyday reality, the film isn’t enlightening or entertaining enough to even fill an 85-minute engagement for an increasingly antsy audience, with Polly Findley showing far too much restrain in her feature length directorial debut.

My Grade: 5.2 or D+