A Rom-com this is not. A "romance" this is not.
I hadn't read the book and didn't know what to expect. I also hadn't even the blurb to see what the film was about (it was Ian McEwan and that's enough for me).
I had to give up on this after 40 minutes. The flashbacks were so frequent that any tension in "the present" was destroyed.
Whoever wrote the dialoge for this movie is extremely lucky to be working in this business. It was dreadful eye rolling drivel, but it did match the action (so to speak).
This movie hit me because of how harshly it treats one of its characters for making an inarguable rash decision. For a character who isn't a villain or even a bad person, poor "Edward" (Billy Howie) gets one of the worst endings that I've seen for a main character.
Who wants to watch a 110 minute movie about a super awkward couple with zero chemistry in an overly dramatic, serious film? Not me.
A young couple, very much in love, marry. On their wedding night, revolted by sex, the wife leaves suddenly and they have a terrible row on Chesil Beach that will shape their lives forever.
I have not read the Ian McEwan novella on which this film was based. So I can't offer any comparisons.
I don't know who is Ian McEwan, probably because I don't read the kind of books he writes. Therefore, I have no idea about how things are depicted in the book.
