HOPE GAP
UK, 2020, 100 minutes, Colour.
Annette Bening, Bill Nighy, Josh O’ Connor.
Directed by William Nicholson.
Hope Gap is a place – near the Kentish Town of Seaford, close to Dover, the striking white cliffs. At English Channel level, when the tide goes out, there are rocks and rock pools. It is a walk where Jamie, and his parents, Edward and Grace, used to take him when he was young.
But Hope Gap is also symbolic. This is a story of a marriage, 29 years, but ending – although it may have ended years earlier.
If an audience wanted to find a film that showed a marriage in close-up, moments of extreme close-up, and increasing awareness of the gaps between husband and wife, then this is a film to recommend. It is not an entertainment in the genial sense. Rather, it is a compelling drama that is often quite disturbing.
It stars Annette Bening and Bill Nighy and they are at their best. They also have the advantage of a strong screenplay by writer William Nicholson (whose range extends from Shadowlands, the C.S.Lewis story, to Gladiator). Nicholson also directs the film.
One of the difficulties in writing a story about a marriage breakup is how much the writer takes sides with each protagonist. How much sympathy should there be for each? Can the screenplay be judgemental? And this is a particular difficulty for Hope Gap. It has to be said that Annette Bening’s Grace comes across as very unsympathetic, rather obdurate, dissatisfied, forever asking questions, quibbling with words and, as her son Jamie (Josh O’Connor) requests her, to stop having a go at her husband. Grace is Catholic and goes to Mass, believes in the insoluble bond of marriage, cannot accept what is happening to her. And, she does focus on what is happening to her, dismissing what is happening to Edward even as she wants him to stay and then to come back.
Because Grace is so hard, difficult to identify with, it is a challenge for the audience, not so much for the heart, but for the head, to acknowledge intellectually how hurt she must be by the experience while finding the hard to empathise.
On the other hand, it is not difficult to be sympathetic to Edward, Bill Nighy playing a quiet man, touch of the scholar, trying to avoid conflict, but finally deciding to leave – and the revelation that he has been in a relationship with a student’s mother, Angela, for a year.
Jamie, who has something of a lonely life of his own, is brought in as mediator, conveying messages questions – fond of his father, but his mother then beginning to treat him in the same way as she treated her husband.
So, while this is life-threatening and life-changing to the protagonists, it is a hard (important) challenge for the audience to share these experiences.
There is a strong moment of dialogue when grace confronts Angela, who says that she has seen them there were three unhappy people – and now there is only one.
1. The title? The channel coast? Seaford, near Dover? The town, streets, visitors, homes, school, walks in the countryside, on the cliffs? The channel, the water, the white cliffs? The Bay, the tide, receding, the rocks and the water pools, Hope Gap?
2. The story of a marriage, breaking? The symbolism of the title, the Hope Gap’s in the main characters lives?
3. The story of a dissolving marriage? The flashback discussion to the meeting between Grace and Edward? The chance encounter in the train, Edward’s needs, Grace’s response, the poem? The marriage? Prudent or not? The birth of Jamie, the happy years of his childhood, the walks at Hope Gap? The happy memories? The aftermath?
4. The value of the screenplay, the intense look, even close-ups, of the marriage and its failure? The narrow scope, the small number of characters, the audience having time to get to know each of the characters, respond, sympathies or not, judgements or not?
5. After 29 years of marriage, in their home, their talk about Jamie and his coming to visit, the interactions between the two? The tensions? Grace and her domination? His general passivity? His coming home, her interventions, his reluctance to answer? The meals, the conversation? Her aggressive tone, quibbling about words, continually asking him questions? The effect on him?
6. Jamie, age 28, living away from home, no strong personal relationship, the failure? His friends back in London, his IT work, their interest, questions, support?
7. His arrival, the discovery that his father had invited him? Talking with his parents, his mother’s devotion, his father’s quiet warmth? His room, the memories? Grace as religious, asking about going to Mass, Jamie and his loss of belief in God, Edward’s excuse that he had assignments to correct?
8. Edward, scholarly, secondary school teacher, Wikipedia, his fascination with Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, the soldiers freezing, on the wagons, driving over the ridges, the bodies falling off, freezing? The story as symbolic for Edward? His going to school, teaching, asking questions of the boys?
9. Edward telling Jamie that he would leave Grace? Audience sharing Jamie’s response?
10. The issue for the audience and for the screenplay writing, how much sympathy for Grace and her being hurt, so surprised, becoming more desperate, how much for Edward, his patience over the years, coming to an end? The fact that he had begun a relationship with Angela and not told Grace, for a year? Personal issues and hurt, moral issues and the bond of marriage?
11. The glimpse of Grace, going to Mass, prayer, a context for her moral certainties?
12. Grace, her response, dismay, coping, verbal defensiveness, playing on words, questions? Her love for Edward? Yet her self-preoccupation?
13. Edward, quiet decision, packing, Angela picking him up, his leaving, going to live with Angela? His discussions with Jamie? Questions to Grace through Jamie?
14. Grace, her response, desperation, loneliness, becoming obdurate, falsely believing that Edward would come back? Refusal to meet him? Final agreement to go to the signing
the documents, her bad behaviour towards the solicitor, verbal quibbles, questioning, walking out?
15. Edward, giving up? The consolation of the meetings with Jamie, walking along the seafront, the ice cream? His giving up on Grace yet his consciousness of having hurt her?
16. Jamie’s visits, Grace turning on him as she did on Edward, his relationships, failures, the question whether he was gay or not?
17. Grace settling down, moving on in life, listening to people’s problems, comparisons with her own, joining the group, the phone calls, her responses? And the issue of whether she was fit to do this kind of work?
18. Her decision to visit Angela, driving to the house, seeing Edward inside, coming in, confronting Edward, Edward comfortably reading in the quiet of the house, Angela coming in, standing up for herself? Her comment about seeing three unhappy people and that now there was only one?
19. Could the marriage have been saved? At what stage? Grace and her aggression over the years, Edward and his acceptance and passivity? The inevitability of the breakdown?
20. The audience invited to observe, sympathise, avoid judgement, understand?
