Hope Gap

Roadside Attractions | Release Date: March 6, 2020

6.6	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Ratings

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NightReviewsAug 10, 2020

“Say not the struggle nought availeth, the labour and the wounds are vain, the enemy faints not, nor faileth, and as things have been they remain.”
An important passage of one of Arthur Hugh Clough’s most recognized poems, is easily one of“Say not the struggle nought availeth, the labour and the wounds are vain, the enemy faints not, nor faileth, and as things have been they remain.”
An important passage of one of Arthur Hugh Clough’s most recognized poems, is easily one of the most important messages from William Nicholson’s long awaited sophomore feature Hope Gap. A story about hope, persistence and hard work for the things in life that matter the most, Hope Gap is a small film, but size never seems to be a determining factor of poignancy. Just like a well written poem, Hope Gap is a little piece of reality for the struggles, hardships and sometimes, maybe even often times, emotionally violent feats one may take to overcome heartbreak.

Upon watching Hope Gap, I found the film resonating very deep within my heart and soul. Having endured a heartfelt and emotional withering of my own relationship, the film treads lightly the very real and hard to swallow realities of moving on.

Plot wise, the film is a very familiar story. As the film opens up, we are quickly introduced to a very simple family; Edward (Bill Nighy) a professor at a local school, Grace, religious mother and poet enthusiast (Annette Bening) and their tech-savvy son Jamie (Jack O’Connor), who has recently moved away from his parents quaint seaside town and into the city. Upon the arrival of Grace and Edward’s twenty-ninth wedding anniversary, an elderly Edward (Bill Nighy) informs Grace that he is leaving him for another woman.

As the unravelling of Grace and Edward’s marriage begins, very simple yet complex themes of happiness, communication and relationships encompass the film. Within the first ten minutes of the film, Grace and Edward’s relationship is spotlighted by how a lack of communication shows how their relationship begins to wither. Discussion of a simple anniversary dinner date, as well as a belief and faith in God shows both of their large differences in the relationship pushes Edward away. Grace, who is so passionate and feisty, laments her own emotions onto Edward, who, lifelessly and aimlessly just goes through the motions of the final days of their marriage. It becomes quite clear that the routine, repetitiveness and familiarity of Edward’s life with Grace takes a toll on how he sees his future may be, and therefore rejects and denies it when he begins to fall in love with another woman.

Nicholson’s script and direction is super tight and extremely relatable in a time where the large gaps between generations, especially between parents and children, are more visible than ever. Nicholson uses his very talented cast, moistly in Bening and Nighy, as well as the highly underrated O’Connor showcase their acting skills in nuanced yet powerful ways. Nicholson treads light waters and uses the weight of little things having value in relationships and how certain partners characteristics leads to problematic formulas of action/reaction and the lack thereof.

Hope Gap is wonderful film who’s biggest enemy are not the cheaters, the faithfuls or the innocent bystanders who get caught in the cross-fires of love; the greatest enemy in Hope Gap are the fears that individuals tend to forget when it comes to growing a life, raising a family and getting older entails. These fears, like, being adequate companions to a spouse, projecting your beliefs onto your children, as well as the expectations people have for others, without expecting much from themselves, become the very fabrics of why Hope Gap succeeds as a portrait of a failed marriage, but also bridges the spaces of simple narrative storytelling.

Hope Gap isn’t a movie you see, it’s a movie you feel, similar to the way Edward explains to his wife how trying to force their son to believe in God is not the path he nor his son sees fit. “You don’t tell love, you feel love“, says Edward. Hinting early on in the film his very own emotions to a wife that seems deaf to his cries and pleas of change and growth.

One of the marvellous feats of Hope Gap is its ability to, although showcasing the faults and incompatibilities of each spouse to the audience as well as to each other, never makes either one of the partners a villain or a hero. Grace and Edward move on with their individual lives in manners that seem to not only evolve their characters, but also allow their son Jamie to find peace and happiness in the unfolding of his parents marital demise.
One of the most reoccurring dialogues in the film, is the idea of being happy and being fine. As Grace so eloquently states, “Fine isn’t the same as happy” when discussing Jamie’s love life in the city and his lack of companionship in his single flat, as well as Edward’s responses whenever Grace asks him how his days are and how he is feeling.… Expand

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Mauro_LanariJun 15, 2020

(Mauro Lanari)
The comparison between the struggle for the survival of the veterans of the Napoleonic campaign in Russia and the abandoned spouse is insufficient to give new life to this shriveled evergreen.

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GreatMartinMar 13, 2020

I don't ever recall Annette Bening or Bill Nighy giving a bad performance and they are in top form in the film. They are a couple about to celebrate their 29th wedding anniversary when he announces that he is leaving her for another woman. ItI don't ever recall Annette Bening or Bill Nighy giving a bad performance and they are in top form in the film. They are a couple about to celebrate their 29th wedding anniversary when he announces that he is leaving her for another woman. It is the second movie I have seen this month--the other being "The Way Back"--that could have been made in the 1950s (only the latter would have had to cut out all the four+ dirty words) and is a completely different story.

Edward (Nighy) and Grace (Bening) have a grown son Jamie (Josh O'Connor) who lives alone in London which at one point leads Grace to ask her son if he is gay. As a wife and mother Grace is aggressive while her husband is quiet, agreeable and seems to allow his wife to make all the decisions in the marriage. After Edward leaves Grace gets a dog she calls Eddie and you get the feeling that she treated Edward just the way she treats the dog. In one instance she trains the dog to sit and roll over giving him a treat for performing for her and you get the feeling this is how the marriage had been for 29 years.

We see how each feels, including the son who is sort of taken aback that he is taking after his father, instead of his mother, who he realizes may have made his father the meek man he seems. Through their acting and the seamless script and direction by William Nicholson we come to know this family and understand why each acts the way they do from the father walking out to the wife being angry, shocked and determined to make him come back, to the son, caught in the middle, not understanding who his parents are.

Last year there was the film "Marriage Story" with strong performances by the leads playing a couple divorcing and received strong acclaim with Oscar nominations for the leads. Though "Hope Gap" is also a story about divorce it is completely different though just as strong in performances and script.

"Hope Gap" is only 100 minutes but falters with too many scenic shots of the beach, white cliffs, and highways interfering with the flow of the movie. In addition, too many of those scenes take away from watching Annette Bening and Bill Nighy, each doing one of their finest movie performances and that is high praise indeed.… Expand

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KenRJun 30, 2021

Nicely written and nuanced film concentrating on long-term relationship breakdown. The situation may not appeal to many audiences as it feels like the writer may have based this study on his own experiences or that of his parents (?) -Nicely written and nuanced film concentrating on long-term relationship breakdown. The situation may not appeal to many audiences as it feels like the writer may have based this study on his own experiences or that of his parents (?) - making it melancholic and quite sad. The pluses, in this case, are the strong performances, especially Annette Bening as the anguished wife who feels she’s being wrongly done by. Then there are the interesting scenic locations making up for the stage origins of the original – with an accompanying music score that blends beautifully with the situations and some nicely read poetry inclusions. It’s a difficult watch, especially for those who may happen to have lived through this unenviable experience - but it does give insights to just how difficult it is for people, who perhaps did not understand their motivations in life. Those who drift in long-term relationships, till an unexpected chance meeting presents a sudden realization...of the possibility for more than living an extended arrangement. Thoughtful but could prove heavy going for those who may not fully appreciate the situations or find enjoyment in rather serious character studies.… Expand

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hnestlyontheslyMar 6, 2020

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. In a lot of ways Hope Gap is a deeply hipster love story, despite the fact that the couple is in their late 50s/early 60s and their young adult son is not a hipster. Annette Bening feels everything really, really hard, the emotional equivalent of a middle schooler dropping acid for the first time, while Bill Nighy’s Edward is a fumbling, bumbling man of few words, whose emotional intelligence is not quite adequate to explain what he sees as the true source of his own unhappiness and the reason for the relationship’s slow decline. The film is a little top heavy with poems. By my count there are at least four full poems recited in voice overs and meaningful close ups with shots of the ocean from overhead. One Rossetti recitation is a lot for any movie, but three is really playing with fire. It feels a little bit like The Sun Is Also A Star in that way, or, on a bad day, like Queen & Slim. But when you start musing in the first two minutes or so about whether or not Grace is metatheatrically calling attention to the movie itself as a “lonely impulse of delight,” we are almost definitionally in the weeds.

There are some laugh out loud moments in the opening act. The way that Grace steamrolls through the dinner discussion of theodicy shows off how breezy and strong-headed she can be: how she smiles at her husband and asks, “Explain to him why there is suffering in the world” elicited some giggles from the crowd. Nighy’s visceral discomfort in the opening scenes at home are a source of humor in themselves. When Grace gushes at her romantically unpaired son Jamie, “I can’t bear that you’re unhappy,” and he balks, she adds, “We’re happy,” a comment which her husband swallows. These moments are clever early bits of comedy that transform as the story progresses and it becomes clear that our initial impression of this nearly 30 year old marriage is not one of quirk and opposites attracting, but rather one of dysfunction and denial.

The conversations early in the house feel like a stage play with stilted, tidy language and convenient turn-taking. Grace demands, “Say something real.” Edward sputters in the act of setting the breakfast things for the morning after hours in advance, then he momentarily recovers by turning the tables on his wife by accusing it of being her “problem,” which leads Grace to lash out violently, surprisingly. This moment, in retrospect, is a blunder by Edward, a step on his way to being more honest with himself and Grace about the reason why they cannot resolve their differences.

Napoleon’s march becomes a central motif of the story, especially the end of his historical lecture to his class of high school students, “They thought this an ‘accident.’ No one looked back.”

Grace’s sense of moral outrage at the death of her marriage, her stubborn intransigence and spirited resistance to divorce serves as the wind that keeps this story sailing. “Your father committed murder, even if there’s no blood,” Grace insists to Jamie. Puzzled by her son’s unwillingness to choose sides in the divorce, she asks, “If you saw a man beating his wife, would you walk on by and say ‘It’s not for you to judge?'” At times, Grace seems to play the cool, reasonable wife, dealing with an uncooperative, uncommunicative husband, who is escaping the commitment to his marriage, as when she calmly insists for her husband’s new phone number rather than using their son as a go-between, “I’m not a lunatic or a criminal. I simply wish to speak to my husband.” Yet in the same breath, she seems to imply her son’s non-judgement is a kind of culpability in a moral wrong, “Have you tried” talking him out of it? she asks Jamie, as if it falls on him to convince his father to see reason. Grace’s pendulous moods do the emotional work for a frustratingly inscrutable husband, in a similar way to Ralph Fiennes’s character in A Bigger Splash, a few years back....

The ending elevates this movie to the next level, but in some ways, it feels like a pretty conventional teen romance movie with slightly older actors. I wish there had been fewer scenes with the adult son hogging the emotional space, because it feels like he was brought in to hold some of the weight as a surrogate for the millennial audience, when really all we want is to see two old, confused people grope around in the darkness of their middle age for some stability when the rug gets pulled out from under them.… Expand

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