The Sea

Jumping back and forth between three different timeframes, we're introduced to Max (Ciaran Hinds) and his wife Anna (Sinead Cusack) as they're dealing with the aftermath of her terminal cancer diagnosis. Then we've got Max – not long after his wife has passed away – slowly descending into alcoholism while staying in a seaside B&B, run by Miss Vavasour (Charlotte Rampling). And finally we've got a very young Max (Matthew Dillon), hanging around the same B&B, but back when it was the summer home to a very rich family, as Max develops an unhealthy crush on the mother of the family (Natascha McElhone) which goes unnoticed by her cheating husband (Rufus Sewell) and becomes a source of irritation for their children.

Throughout all this, we get the impression that something quite drastically tragic has happened in this house, which is why Max has returned to it after all these years, perhaps seeking a sense of closure after his wife's death. Unfortunately, the film has absolutely no idea how to put that point across without being overtly melodramatic.

Adapting from his own Booker-prize winning novel, screenwriter John Banville doesn't seem to have the same knack for burrowing into the depths of character in the same way author John Banville does, and first time director Stephen Brown shows no signs of creativity while telling the story. Some of the cinematography is quite beautiful, and the potentially complicated story is laid out quite well, but the entire movie seems quite lifeless, as if created in a vacuum, given no room to move or air to breathe.

Hinds does some decent work, a damaged man suffering from both recent and ancient traumas, and McElhone shines brightly as an object of desire, even if she is oblivious to that fact. But the actors, too, are given very little wiggle room, with the stilted dialogue and long, is-there-a-point-to-this? silences that are reminiscent of Merchant Ivory at their very worst.

For a film that's supposed to be about the constant torture of our own memories, The Sea is all too forgettable.