Hope Gap (2020)

Film: Hope Gap (2020)
Stars: Annette Bening, Bill Nighy, Josh O'Connor
Director: William Nicholson
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Like many of you, I've been in quarantine for many months now, and during that time I've tried to accomplish some things, including watching a lot of movies, particularly focused on our Saturdays with the Stars and Oscar Viewing Project titles.  I've forgotten, therefore, that I used to go to the theater all the time, not with necessarily a purpose, but instead just because I love going to new movies, and exploring what artists have to say about the cinema at large.  It's difficult to get to a theater safely right now (I'm currently waging when and if I'll be able to get there, though I have hopes to do this week unless that fear gets to me), but I don't want to deprive myself of this pleasure of seeing new movies, and I think the thing that will help me get back into it (and hopefully you too) is discussion about new movies, and what 2020 titles are out there that we should be catching.  We're going to be doing a special series in October that will supersede our traditional weekday themes, but for the next week-and-a-half I thought it would be fun to talk about eight titles that were released this year (either digitally or in theaters or in one case simply domestically) and see what's worth watching that's on our streaming platforms or through a rental (or perhaps in person if you're so able!).  We're going to start that conversation with Hope Gap, a movie that just missed me seeing it in person earlier this year.

(Spoilers Ahead) Though the film has other characters, it's almost completely a three-person play, a family of mother Grace (Bening), father Edward (Nighy), and son Jamie (O'Connor).  Grace & Edward live a normal life, which Grace finds unfortunate (she'd prefer more spontaneity), while Edward is happy teaching & updating Wikipedia articles.  When their son Jamie unexpectedly comes home, we initially assume that he's about to drop something seismic on the tempestuous (but routine) fights between Grace & Edward, but it turns out that Edward asked Jamie to be there because he's going to leave Grace for another woman.  This shock, coming from a mild-mannered Englishman, reverberates across all three characters, Grace especially as she must combine her complicated Catholic faith (which neither her son nor her husband take as seriously) with the realization that she will have to start a chapter in her life that she didn't want to, nor did she expect.

Hope Gap would work better as an actual staged production than it does onscreen-it might make the monologuing a bit more succinct, and would have trimmed some of the fat from the film.  It is, in fact, based on a play by William Nicholson called The Retreat from Moscow that won several high-profile Tony nominations, including for Eileen Atkins (as Grace) and Ben Chaplin (as Jamie).  Onscreen it doesn't flesh out the story enough, which is a problem when you move staged stories to the larger venue of cinema, and so Hope Gap doesn't alway feel authentic in the narrative it's driving.

That said, the acting is very good.  Bening has developed a brilliant late act in her career playing complicated, aging women who don't conform to what society expects of a woman her age, but more importantly she doesn't conform to how a woman in this situation is supposed to feel.  In other movies, we'd have Bening's character dating a younger man or finding solace in her work, which she does...but that doesn't mean that Bening hides the pain.  There's a terrific moment late in the film where Edward's new girlfriend says that she "saw three unhappy people, and now there's only one," and it's a bitter, real moment for Grace as she realizes that what was stolen from her was not a loving marriage, but instead the foundation she found from the routine she seemed to verbally abhor.  Coupled with strong turns from O'Connor (who fleshes out a part that feels underwritten as best he can-he's really a great up-and-coming actor) and Nighy, Hope Gap is not flawless, but it's a quiet, meditative film that's worth your time.