Based on Ian McEwan’s (Atonement) novella by the same name, director Dominic Cooke proves that just because you have flint and tinder doesn’t always mean that you can make fire with his memorable and poignant, yet sometimes underwhelming and often slow On Chesil Beach. Not only did Cooke have McEwan’s novel to work with, but the author wrote the screenplay himself. Now I’m not a huge fan of comparing the book to the movie in my reviews (most of the time, as in the case of this one, it’s because I haven’t read the book), but I have read a couple of reviews that say that the movie did not do the book justice, that the final scenes of the movie weren’t even in the book, and that even what McEwan’s main novel points were changed or not flushed out. But since I actually liked the movie ass did most critics and other moviegoers (68% and 94% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes), I’m willing to forget the omissions specifically mentioned in the unfavorable reviews on both Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper’s websites. Nevertheless, I felt a very relatable component of this 1962 English set movie to 2018. The relatable component could be applicable in many specific situations in physically romantic relationships between two people.
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