Hope Gap is another self-reminder not to watch movie trailers anymore. Had I not seen the trailer when deciding whether to see this movie, I would not have known what was to come. Of course, without the trailer, I wouldn’t have known if it would have interested me. It’s a double-edged sword, for sure. My new way of watching a non-theater trailer is watching just enough to determine an interest level. If, after 15 seconds, it looks like something I want to watch, I’ll cut off the trailer. If it takes 45 seconds, so be it. If I’m still watching by the end of the trailer, there’s a better chance than not that I won’t end up watching the movie.

I watched about 30-45 seconds of a two-minute trailer with Hope Gap, but it was enough to give the entire story away. I didn’t know it then, but ten minutes into the film, I knew exactly where it was going and how it would likely end. This movie is predictable and dull. The acting is average at best. The film might have better worked as a play than a movie, which is how I felt when watching Carnage and Blackbird, which I felt were overacted and overdramatized. This film was better than either of these two movies, but it was also no August: Osage County.

In addition to writing the screenplay, William Nicholson (screenwriter for movies like Gladiator, Les Miserables, Everest, and Unbroken) directs just the second full-length film of his career. Unfortunately, this film isn’t that memorable. It’s predictable from the start (especially after seeing the trailer). If you wonder if something happens that you might not expect, you’ll continue to be left wondering. If, instead, you might think that there is some overarching theme, you’ll be disappointed. It will only be if you hope the acting can carry a dull screenplay and predictable plot.

Grace (Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right, American Beauty) and Edward (Bill Nighly – Love Actually, State of Play) are on the eve of their 29th wedding anniversary. Empty nesters, they live in a house that is much too large for them in the quiet, oceanside town of Seaford, England, while their twenty-something son Jamie (Josh O’Connor – God’s Own Country, Florence Foster Jenkins) lives his own life in London, rarely frequenting his childhood home. Grace is talkative, pushy, and always looking to engage. He’s quieter, more introverted, and inclined to do his own thing. It feels like Edward is constantly at Grace’s beck and call, and he takes it because there is no use in saying no to her. He’s extremely unhappy in his home life (which contrasts sharply with how he appears when he works as a high school history teacher in a nearby school), and it seems like he’s there just because he has to be. He’s resigned to not pushing back on Grace about anything because he’s always in a no-win situation.

Their relationship feels like there is a fracture in it. Edward knows it. We know it. The problem is that Grace doesn’t know it. This leads to a somewhat predictable plot. At this point, there are only a couple of directions it could go in. The rest of the film goes through the motions. There is conflict, more conflict, and eventually, resolution. An overmatched young actor in O’Connor is left to serve as referee, trying not to play favorites between his two parents. He knows that both of his heroes are flawed. He is perhaps realizing for the first time that there are always different types of battles his parents had been fighting individually, together, and against one another. His parents were human with real emotions. In a way, Jamie took the first twenty-plus years of his life for granted, and now it was time for him to step up and be the son that each of his parents needed.

Hope Gap is dry, predictable, and flat. Grace is so annoying that I almost don’t blame Edward for leaving her. That was the purpose, but the Grace character was rather pathetic. Bening, who won’t earn her fifth Oscar for this role, plays her purposefully, but it felt like she was completely overblown. She was angry at times, yelling and hitting her husband, who we learn from Jamie, has been taking it for years. At other times, she begged for forgiveness and pleaded with him not to leave or come back to her, even after moving out to be with a woman he calls the first love of his life. If that sounds like a brutal statement, it certainly is. But Grace was such a controlling miser who was constantly egging for a reaction so she could engage in some altercation that I couldn’t fault him for finding an outlet that didn’t involve her. I don’t condone infidelity, and it certainly wasn’t something that Edward was seeking, but rather something that fell onto him. But when he did, he knew he felt something he hadn’t felt before and didn’t want to let that feeling go. Who would?

A solid miss. There is little point in watching this movie. I love movies about broken relationships, but this one was droopy and moody. It didn’t take very long for me to see that I didn’t care about any of the three characters or what happened with them as the story unfolded. The entire 101-minute movie felt like a charade, and not for a second did I get enveloped in the story, nor did I feel like the characters were anything more than actors playing a role.

Plot 4/10
Character Development 5/10
Character Chemistry 5/10
Acting 5/10
Screenplay 4/10
Directing 6/10
Cinematography 6/10
Sound 6/10
Hook and Reel 6/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
55%

D-

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