Hinds and Manville take a ‘Midwinter Break’

By Greg Carlson

In what turns out to be a safe, sedate and fairly dusty two-hander, novelist Bernard MacLaverty adapts his own 2017 book “Midwinter Break” with co-screenwriter Nick Payne. Experienced theatre director and first-time feature filmmaker Polly Findlay guides veteran talents Ciarán Hinds and Lesley Manville in their roles as Gerry and Stella, a long-married couple whose crumbling union reaches a critical point during an Amsterdam vacation. Admirers of MacLaverty’s original story, which alternates between the viewpoints of the key characters, may be more forgiving than audience members coming in cold, but Findlay’s reserved style only underlines the somnolence.

Although neither performer can be faulted for the steady, polished work delivered in “Midwinter Break,” Hinds and Manville have appeared in any number of far superior films. Both actors have been directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, who steered Manville to an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of the Mrs. Danvers-esque Cyril Woodcock in “Phantom Thread.” Hinds, as the principal character’s grandfather in Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” has also been nominated for an Academy Award. Together, they ring true as lovers who have grown cold and distant, even if they continue to treat one another with courtesy.

Rather than a complex and nuanced presentation of spousal disharmony, “Midwinter Break” opts for a hammer instead of a scalpel. Stella struggles to cope with Gerry’s fondness for alcohol while Gerry can summon little to no respect for Stella’s churchgoing and religious devotion. Periodically, flashbacks link the present to the past: Gerry and Stella, who currently reside in Scotland, left their home city of Belfast following trauma that haunts Stella decades later. The details of that fateful instant, which involve an unborn child and a desperate prayer, are not particularly revelatory, but Findlay stretches them out anyway.

Shot on location, “Midwinter Break” attracts the eyes of those who have been to Amsterdam and those who would like to go (hopefully, under more joyful circumstances than those experienced by Gerry and Stella). When not shown in their modest hotel room, the tourists take in the sights of canals and churches, strolling through the Red Light District in a scene that comes complete with amusing historical commentary. More sobering is the stop at the Anne Frank House, an experience that reminds Stella about the fragility of existence, the promise of children and the inexplicable ramifications of violence on the innocent.

Even though it is nowhere near as singular as Nicolas Roeg’s hypnotic “Don’t Look Now,” “Midwinter Break” draws some unfavorable comparisons to the 1973 thriller adapted from the Daphne du Maurier short story. Both stories contemplate marital stress from the vantage point of geographical displacement in popular tourist destinations. Both films leverage spirituality and religious faith as counterweights to ongoing grief/guilt. The couples in both narratives take refuge in sex, despite ongoing internal and external strain on their partnerships. But “Midwinter Break” is familiar and uneventful where the far more impressionistic “Don’t Look Now” is consciously outré.

“Midwinter Break” isn’t designed to show off the domestic melodrama fireworks that juice so many memorable cinematic cousins, from “Scenes From a Marriage” to “Kramer vs. Kramer” to “Blue Valentine” to “Marriage Story.” The kind of long-simmering acrimony that ignites raging, tearful confrontations is, by design, held mostly in check by Findlay and her leads. I’m not necessarily arguing that scenery-chewing brawls are required for “Midwinter Break” to succeed. Hinds and Manville, however, deserve the kind of next-level dialogue worthy of their supreme skill.

Reach HPR film critic Greg Carlson at gregcarlson1@gmail.com.