A story that yields to sentiment

Take it as a tribute to actress Gemma Arterton that a movie as contrived and maudlin as Summerland could be even the least bit watchable. Theater director Jessica Swale makes her big-screen debut with a story about an academic writer (Arterton) living in a remote coastal town in England.  Set mostly in the 1940s, the story begins in earnest when Arterton's Alice Lamb is taken by surprise: An escort brings a boy (Lucas Bond) to her home. The reclusive, acerbic Lamb has no interest in the boy who has been shipped from London as part of a program to save the city's children from the Blitz.  Eventually, Alice warms to the boy and him to her with Arterton doing her best to keep Alice from becoming a one-note character. As the story proceeds, we see flashbacks to a time when Alice established a relationship with a young woman (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) awakened Alice to life's possibilities before declining the invitation to a long-term relationship. Mbatha-Raw's character couldn't imagine a life without children. More an emblem than a character, Mbatha-Raw has little to do beyond looking luminous. The interactions between Alice and Frank -- her new charge -- are well-handled but the movie concludes with a couple of dubious twists, one that milks emotions and the other that strains credibility. Penelope Wilton portrays the aging Alice in opening and closing scenes and the movie features Tom Courtenay as a gentle, compassionate small-town man. Swale mostly ignores social responses to lesbian love during less tolerant days, makes little reference to race, and seems most interested in providing a cinematic massage to soothe troubled spirits. I kept wondering whether the thorny, evidence-driven character Arterton creates possibly could have made it through the soggy third act.

Charlotte Rampling in a subtle role

45 Years looks at a couple whose marriage is unsettled by a strange piece of news.

Your marriage is approaching the 45-year mark. You assume that there isn't much about your spouse that you don't know. You're living in the placid region where issues have been settled or, at minimum, productively ignored.

You are reasonably content.

And I say "reasonably" only because you're not an idiot, and you know that complete contentment lies beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.

And then...

Something happens that makes you wonder how right you've been about your partner. This unsettlement may not arrive in the form of a huge revelation, but it's enough to upset a carefully built balance. Think of it as a crack in the foundation, worrisome because it's likely to grow.

In the case of Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff (Tom Courtenay), the main characters in the British movie, 45 Years, the news that upsets the apple cart of their childless marriage arrives in the form of a letter. It seems the body of one of Geoff's former girlfriends, lost on an Alpine ski trip they shared more than 45 years ago, has been found in tact, preserved in the mountain ice.

From that point on, life changes, most particularly for Kate, who's in the midst of planning the couple's 45th anniversary party.

Kate isn't exactly jealous; it's more that she's baffled, concerned about her ability to peer into her husband's heart. And what if it turns out that she was Plan B, the woman Geoff accepted after he lost the woman he really loved?

To make this quiet drama work as well as it does requires actors who can operate in the subtlest of modes. For that, director Andrew Haigh has chosen well.

Rampling, who has been nominated for a best-actress Oscar, gives a fine, reflective performance as a woman who knows how to maintain composure while her insides are in turmoil. Almost entirely reliant on nuance and suggestion, Rampling's performance qualifies as one of her best.

Courtney upholds the male end of the bargain as a character who mostly keeps his inner life to himself. A retired manager at a local factory, Geoff begins looking at slides of his former girlfriend that he has kept in the attic. He also renews his smoking habit.

The movie, which culminates with the anniversary party, ostensibly tells the story of a couple, but 45 Years really focuses on Kate, and it leaves us to ponder how exactly she's going to continue with the rest of her life now that her relationship has been thrown into an unsettling new light.

'Quartet' plays nice -- too nice

Quartet is noteworthy for being Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut. Little else about the movie deserves pressing into one's book of cinema memories. Treating its aging characters as colorfully humorous, Quartet puts its mountain of cliches into the hands of a collection of British actors who earn respect simply by showing up. The movie takes place in an estate-like home for aging musicians as they prepare for a fund-raising gala that (yes) is needed to save the institution from bankruptcy. Faint ripples of drama emerge when Maggie Smith's Jean Horton shows up, much to the consternation of her ex-husband Reginald Paget (Tom Courtenay), another of the home's residents. Reginald never has forgiven Jean for a long-ago dalliance. Moments of sentiment bump up against the movie's comic core. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood, who adapted his own play, specializes in broadly drawn characters. Michael Gambon is the imperious impresario who's trying to pull the gala together; Pauline Collins plays the addled, memory-challenged Cissy; and Billy Connolly portrays the obligatory dirty old man. It's difficult to argue with the abilities of a cast of established veterans. But the movie's poignant moments veer toward the maudlin, and there's not a lot of drama in wondering whether Smith and Courtenay will reach some sort of rapprochement or whether four singers can be put together to perform a quartet from Rigoletto. Smith, in fine form, plays a reluctant diva; Jean must be persuaded to participate in the quartet. For all the fuss about the gala, it looks far too modest to support the estate and grounds where most of the movie takes place. A scene in which Courtenay's character lectures to a group of rap-oriented youngsters about the glories of opera seems neutered of any bite. And a movie about serious music surely could have done better than Dario Marianelli's warm bath of a score. Oh well, perhaps it's fitting accompaniment for such a middle-brow massage of a movie.