All seems well on a Monday morning. Walk the dog. Have a friendly chat with the mailman. Five more days until the big celebration, a party that will be thrown commemorating a long and successful marriage. And for Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff Mercer (Tom Courtenay), a middle class couple now enjoying the leisure lifestyle of retirement, 45 years of marriage seems like a milestone worth celebrating. The Mercers have no children, yet they still manage to enjoy the comforts of their retirement.
“45 Years,” written and directed by Andrew Haigh, is a slow yet engrossing drama, revealing that some stones are better left unturned. For the Mercers, that stone arrives in the form of a letter Monday morning from Switzerland, notifying Geoff that the body of Katya, his lover from the 1960s, has become visible in a melting glacier. Geoff and Katya had been hiking in the Swiss Alps when Katya falls through a crevasse. Initially forgotten about, the news of Katya has opened a Pandora’s Box, threatening the long stability of the Mercers’ marriage.
Kate has always known of Geoff’s relationship with Katya before her and it has never been an issue. Yet with the recently unveiled news and Geoff’s growing preoccupation with Katya, Kate begins to wonder if their marriage has ever been genuine at all. Kate finds Geoff’s old flare with Katya becoming quickly reignited as she finds him talking about Katya without prompt, as well as finding Geoff going through the attic just to look at pictures of Katya. Katya’s presence has invaded the Mercer household, tainting everything as Kate angrily tells Geoff one night.
Tension builds as the days pass. Will the Mercers still be able to hold it together in time for the big anniversary celebration Saturday? Will they be able to hold it together at all? Geoff, albeit naively and without proper consideration, doesn’t consider how his wife might feel each time he brings up Katya. For Kate, on the other hand, it’s becoming harder for her to keep her to composure, and act as if everything is okay.
Has her marriage ever been genuine? Was she simply just a second choice and nothing else? These are the questions that are tearing Kate up inside as she struggles to move on and continue more years of a happy marriage. What “45 Years” does so well is tell a story by not revealing too much at all. The audience never sees a clear shot of Katya, nor a flashback scene of Geoff and Katya’s relationship. In fact the film even ends just when the issue really thickens, yet perhaps for the better. “45 Years” shows how sometimes a slight turn of events can rupture the soundest relationships.
**MOVE gives 4.5 out of 5 stars.**
_Edited by Katherine Rosso | krosso@themaneater.com_
