director and screenwriter – Andrew Haigh

Every long-standing marriage has a history behind it. The marriage of Geoff and Kate has its prehistory as well, including a mystery surrounding Geoff’s first love, which emerges a week before they are due to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. The arrival of a letter sets in motion an emotive domino effect, stirring feelings that have long been buried and causing the couple to question the very foundations of their seemingly ideal relationship. By the end of the week there may not be anything left to celebrate. Like Michael Haneke in Amour, Haigh avoids sentiment while showing profound awareness for the complexities of human relationships as he studies an enduring marital bond in which love has also become a matter of routine. The director constructs his tonally subdued picture with the tension of a thriller. Unfolding quietly beyond the pastoral landscape is a drama of jealousy, forgiveness, and reconciliation with loneliness and with the past.