There may have been love once, but it was long gone. Bitter scenes of a marriage with the actors Annette Bening and Bill Nighy.
Hamburg – They talk and talk, but after 29 years of marriage they haven’t had anything to say to each other for a long time. What remains is a lot of frustration, despair and resignation – and the realization that this marriage may have been just an illusion from the start.
William Nicholson staged his bitter scenes of a marriage in a small space like a chamber play in which Bill Nighy (“Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”) and Annette Bening (“The Kids Are All Right”) torment their way through an ailing relationship with flying colors.
Edward gave up a long time ago. He walks around like a somnambulist grief, without tension or power. This man is tired. Very, very tired. And he left his self-esteem at the front door. Grace will later call him a “disgusting washcloth”. But she has actually not given up yet. She believes in marriage and some concept of happiness.
And a slap in the face
And yet: there is a lot of argument in this house. Because of the little things that mean so much. Until it finally escalates when Grace slaps her husband in the face. How many endpoints and how much agony and humiliation does it take? “We just don’t fit together,” is Edward’s bitter conclusion about two people who have been wearing each other down for a long time.
Between the two stands her grown son Jamie, played by Josh O’Connor, who plays Prince Charles in the series “The Crown”. He is not only troubled by the drama of his parents, he also has a lot of problems himself. No question about it, in “Who we are and who we were” there are a lot of unhappy people whose souls are heavily burdened.
But there is a fourth leading actor: the small coastal town of Seaford (East Sussex). The view of the lofty chalk cliffs, the magnificent beach and the colorful bathing houses let you take a deep breath and forget the looming confines of Edward and Grace’s house. But how are things going on with the two of them? Is there still a future together? Edward made his decision a long time ago!
Who we are and who we were, GB 2019, 100 min., FSK from 6, by William Nicholson, with Annette Bening, Bill Nighy, Josh O’Connor dpa
