HOPE GAP opens in US
My film has its first proper opening this week in 18 cinemas, widening if all goes well to a maximum of 160. Annette Bening is doing a lot of publicity, including the Ellen DeGeneris and James Corden TV shows. And we have our first really favourable review, from Deadline Hollywood’s Pete Hammond:
‘It says a lot to proclaim Annette Bening’s portrayal of a woman in denial about her failing marriage in Hope Gap as one of the very best of her career. Yet it most definitely is. Sporting a nifty English accent, the four-time Oscar nominee hits new notes of authenticity and power as Grace, a wife of 29 years who is surprised and devastated when her husband suddenly says he wants out. That is the premise of this raw and revealing look at the effect of a breakup on not only the two at the center of it, but the entire family unit. It is something writer-director William Nicholson knows well as this very personal film was inspired by his own reaction to the end of his parents’ 30-year marriage. This isn’t directly their story, but one that may strike universal chords among families who have been through this kind of traumatic experience… I cannot say enough for what this superb trio of actors brings to these roles. It all feels so intimate that it could be a play, but Nicholson in choosing the town of Seaford makes the setting singularly cinematic. Bening gets right to the core of Grace, a woman with spirit who refuses to accept what her husband is doing and almost desperately tries to turn it around, even with the sad fact her marriage may not have ever been what she believed it was. Nighy’s completely believable here, as is O’Connor (currently Prince Charles in The Crown, and again opposite Nighy in Emma), ideally cast as a young man who never dreamed this could happen to his family, and who has to become a go-between as a new reality sets in. There are especially poignant moments here as well, and some very funny ones especially when Grace decides to get a dog as a new companion and names him Edward. The line she throws at the dog in the lawyer’s office, “Edward, stay,” not only draws a laugh but also says more than you can imagine about her state of mind. Hope Gap is a compelling and rich human drama with acting that is just about as good as it gets.’
And this from Moira Macdonald in the Seattle Times:
‘Annette Bening always plays characters who are refreshingly complicated; women you can see thinking, listening, changing. In “Hope Gap,” an elegant three-character drama from playwright/filmmaker William Nicholson (“Shadowlands”), she’s handed a great role: Grace, a British woman of letters (retired, she’s editing a poetry anthology) who’s stunned when her husband of 29 years, Edward (Bill Nighy), announces over tea and toast that he’s leaving her for another woman. The third character isn’t that woman, who we barely meet, but Grace and Edward’s grown son, Jamie (Josh O’Connor), who sadly watches the implosion in his parents’ marriage as if viewing bad news on television; trying to look away, but unable.
There’s nothing at all unusual about this kind of story, which has been fodder for countless movies, plays and books before this one. But Nicholson sets “Hope Gap” in a picture-perfect seaside town — the white cliffs seem to symbolize how Grace’s marriage has suddenly fallen away — and centers it on three intelligent people coping with something both everyday and devastating. His writing is economical, telling us much without words; note how, in Jamie’s matter-of-fact putting away of the dishes Grace has thrown in rage, we learn everything about how this young man grew up; how Grace keeps seeing visions of Edward around the house after he has left, the way you think you’ve seen a peek of a beloved household pet who has died; how the beige plainness of Edward’s new home speaks volumes about what he might have been looking for.
And Nicholson’s language is often, as befits a playwright, poetic. Just try not to have your heart broken as Bening murmurs, in her dusky British accent, about waking up — “that moment, coming out of the confusion of dreams, and you think maybe it’s not true, maybe he’s lying there after all, and you turn your head on the pillow and he’s not there.”
“Hope Gap” is a deeply sad film, and maybe not what a lot of us are in the mood for these days, but it’s ultimately uplifting, in its quiet way. “The thing about unhappiness is that after a while, it stops being interesting,” Grace muses; she’s finding, in her own complicated fashion, a way to move on.’
And this from Entertainment Weekly:
‘For writer/director William Nicholson this is art as testimonial and catharsis…With “Hope Gap,” Nicholson delivers an elegant, dramatically engaging portrait of how marriages can break down even near twilight… As drama “Hope Gap” offers an intimate look into the process of coping and enduring a sudden life change. Amid more bombastic films Nicholson is sharing with us not only fiction culled from memory, but a reminder that emotions are more potent and dangerous than any special effect.’