At one stage, 2011 threatened to be the year of Rachel Weisz, with no fewer than five films set for release and several potential awards contenders among them. But things haven’t quite turned out as planned; she picked up good reviews for “The Whistleblower,” but the film didn’t get much traction, while both “Page Eight” and “360” got pretty poor reviews at Toronto, and “Dream House“… well, I mean, you’ve seen the trailer, right?
Fortunately, there’s one shining light in there: “The Deep Blue Sea,” the much anticipated return of director Terence Davies with an adaptation of Terence Rattigan‘s classic 1950s drama of sex, adultery and guilt. Our own Kevin Jagernauth raved about it at TIFF, calling it “beautiful, woozy and heartbreaking,” and finding Weisz’s performance extraordinary, and most of the other reviews agreed. Whether it plays into the awards season is yet to be seen — the picture’s been picked up by Music Box Films but they haven’t yet set a date for it — but the film will be closing the BFI London Film Festival next month ahead of its U.K. release in November, and Love Film have now premiered the first British trailer for the film.
Like the “Wuthering Heights” trailer from the other day, it’s a fairly brief teaser, but already displays much of what seems to be the film’s strengths: Davies’ trademark sepia-tinted time-gone-by look, supporting turns by “Thor” star Tom Hiddleston and the great Simon Russell Beale, and, of course, Weisz at the very center of it all. Between this and the advance word, we’re very, very excited to see how it turns out. The film hits the U.K. on November 25th, and we’re almost certain that Music Box will schedule some kind of Oscar-qualifying U.S. run before the end of 2011. Watch the trailer below.
