Synopsis
In 1962 England, a young couple finds their idyllic romance colliding with issues of sexual freedom and societal pressure, leading to an awkward and fateful wedding night.
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Cast
- Saoirse RonanFlorence Ponting
- Billy HowleEdward Mayhew
- Anne-Marie DuffMarjorie Mayhew
- Adrian ScarboroughLionel Mayhew
- Emily WatsonViolet Ponting
- Samuel WestGeoffrey Ponting
- Andy BurseWaiter One
- Rasmus HardikerWaiter Two
- Mia BurgessHarriet Mayhew
- Anna BurgessAnne Mayhew
Recommendations
- 100
Variety
It’s a lyrical and rapturous film — a repressed passion play, funny, delicate and heartbreaking. - 83
The Film Stage
Its authentic depiction of unprepared young love is delicately innocent. - 75
Slant Magazine
The film’s imaginative daring springs from its willingness to render repression sexy, even if it will prove to be the seed of a young couple’s dissolution. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
This film of delicate emotional nuance recounts an enchanting but sad love story. - 60
The Guardian
It is a tender and valuable film, well acted, with a shrewd eye for how naive you can be in your early 20s, how impatient, how pompous, how tragicomically un-self-aware. - 60
Total Film
A decent adaptation of McEwan’s excellent novella. Forget Fifty Shades – this is sex to make your cheeks blush. - 60
Empire
An opulent, well crafted and acted tale of emotional repression that captures the head more than the heart. - 58
IndieWire
On Chesil Beach offers up so many tricky tonal changes, enough that Cooke eventually gives them over to a single note: limp.
