Hope Gap (2019)

Directed by: William Nicholson | 96 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Annette Bening, Bill Nighy, Josh O’Connor, Aiysha Hart, Ryan McKen, Joe Citro, Sally Rogers, Nicholas Burns, Steven Pacey, Derren Litten, Rose Keegan, Finn Bennett, Nicholas Blane

When spouses decide to divorce, the children are always the victims. Even when they are adults. When his own parents separated after nearly three decades of marriage, William Nicholson became a sounding board, messenger, and mediator for both his father and mother. “My father said ‘I’m leaving’ and I felt it was my duty to be there for my mother – to support her as much as I could. My father explained to me why he left, and I understood. I understood both his and my mother’s point of view.” The British playwright and screenwriter – co-responsible for the Oscar-nominated screenplay of ‘Gladiator’ (2000) – incorporated his experiences into the play ‘The Retreat from Moscow’, which was performed by John Lithgow, Eileen Atkins and Ben Chaplin. was successful on Broadway in 2003. Sixteen years later, Nicholson adapted his own play into a screenplay, which was released under the title ‘Hope Gap’ (2019), starring again three top actors: Bill Nighy, Annette Bening and Josh O’Connor. Nicholson himself took the director’s chair, something he did only once before, and years ago (‘Firelight’, 1997). That film gave him bad experiences with the distributor, the meanwhile badly knocked off his pedestal Harvey Weinstein (who marketed his film completely differently than Nicholson had in mind), as a result of which he no longer had any appetite for the ‘world’ for years and rather – and not without success – plunged into screenwriting. With the personal ‘Hope Gap’ and perhaps also the knowledge that Weinstein is behind bars, the 72-year-old Briton dared to take on the adventure as a director again.

“Marriages don’t bleed, but they do get killed,” Grace (Annette Bening) snaps at her husband Edward (Bill Nighy) with drama after telling her to leave her after 29 years of marriage. She apparently never noticed that the two lived completely apart for the majority of those almost three decades. Of course, in the early years there was a lot of passion. After all, they had a son, Jamie (Josh O’Connor), who has precious memories of those early years when the three of them regularly take walks through the breathtakingly beautiful landscape of cliffs, chalk cliffs and beaches on England’s southwest coast. He has not been to the parental home for a while, but he did come at the invitation of his father. And now he knows why: his father had something important to say to his mother and because he wants to pack up immediately afterwards, he wants Jamie to be home to support his mother. The boy, now thirty and struggling with his own love life, literally finds himself between two fires after his father’s clear but confrontational message. Edward has been unhappy for years, but always came home and poured Grace a cup of tea before crawling behind his computer to check Wikipedia. But something has changed, he has found someone who suits him much better than Grace, always whining for attention, love and confirmation. As expected, she is having a particularly difficult time with the communication. She gives both Edward and Jamie a good blow, after which she falls prey to feelings of anger, sadness, grief and despair.

There is something curious about the character Grace. Normally the sympathy in these kinds of stories lies with the abandoned woman, but Grace has the greatest possible effort to win us over. Of course, you understand that she has ended up on an emotional roller coaster and that you sometimes say strange things. But Grace is often downright mean in her comments, acting childishly and leaving no room for adult conversation. It’s kind of funny that she buys a dog, who names it Edward and then flashes the command ‘stay’, but the scene she kicks in a law firm not much later makes her toes curl. You understand very well why Edward couldn’t stand it any longer with this woman; that he stuck to her for 29 years is a world achievement. Bening plays it fantastic, and we expect nothing less from an actress with her track record. But in the first instance our sympathy lies mainly with Edward and especially with Jamie. It actually seems to take Bill Nighy little effort to play Edward-type men, the somewhat drawn-out and worn-out but bone-dry ‘old neighbour’ who doesn’t seem to have an ounce of evil in them. How can he ever resist his wife’s verbal and emotional abuse? He simply doesn’t have the energy for that.

Josh O’Connor overwhelmed with his rock-solid role in ‘God’s Own Country’ (2017) and definitely stole the hearts of the viewer. It is through his eyes that we watch, with bewilderment and sadness, what is happening. The tipping point seems to have come: before his parents took care of him, now he has to take care of them. We sense his feelings of confusion, his loyal involvement, his – of course completely misplaced – guilt (Is it because of him? Shouldn’t he have intervened sooner? Isn’t he taking sides too much?). He is used as a plaything between his two parents, who pass reproaches to each other through him. His completely upset mother seems to need him more than his father, who after years seems to have finally found real happiness. But that doesn’t make the splits Josh finds himself in any less complex and heavy.

‘Hope Gap’ was originally a play and you notice that especially in the many dialogues in the film. Nicholson also lards with (phrases from) poems that Grace collects as a hobby: even more text. Fortunately, he also makes good use of the beautiful nature of southern England and treats us to fantastic shots from the air here and there, which literally gives this strongly acted but very heavy film that much-needed breath.