( EW.com ) -- Passion defies reason in `` The Deep Blue Sea . '' And in this typically exquisite , nuanced , memory-infused work from master British filmmaker Terence Davies ( `` The House of Mirth '' ) , we believe every minute of the torment of Hester ( Rachel Weisz ) , a cultivated woman who 's married ( passionlessly ) to a solicitous magistrate named Sir William ( Simon Russell Beale ) but is helplessly in thrall to Freddie ( Tom Hiddleston from `` War Horse '' and `` Thor '' ) , a younger , drink-prone chap who will never love her the way she does him . Never mind . Hester leaves her marriage for Freddie . She abandons upper-class comfort to move in with him , and when he forgets to be home on her birthday -- golf with his mates was what he fancied -- she tries to gas herself to death in their dinky flat . ( That 's no spoiler . It happens in the first scene . ) Davies adapted `` The Deep Blue Sea '' from the 1952 play of the same name by Terence Rattigan as part of the centenary celebration of the late British playwright . It 's easy to see why the material spoke to the director : With his painterly filmmaking style , his characteristic interest in the intersection between longing and restraint , and his ongoing fascination with the early postwar England of his own childhood , Davies has been able to shape the stage play to his strengths , telling the story from Hester 's point of view . It helps that Weisz , in one of her finest performances , opens herself beautifully to vulnerability and folly . It 's also important that , as played by Beale and Hiddleston , no man is the villain . In interviews , Davies has given aesthetic shout-outs to both the movies of Doris Day and the quintessentially British thwarted-passion drama from 1945 , `` Brief Encounter . '' The muted yet rich palette of `` The Deep Blue Sea , '' the calm compositions and the gently flowing pace , though , are all his . Collectors of perfect tracking shots will be thrilled by one in a tube station during the Blitz . And fans of Davies since his early , autobiographical films `` Distant Voices , '' `` Still Lives , '' and `` The Long Day Closes '' will appreciate the inclusion of one of his favorite time-capsule gestures : a warm pub scene in which every patron , young and old , joins in singing popular tunes . So very British and so very much a lost era . EW 's grade : A . See the full article at EW.com . CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . © 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved .
Rachel Griffiths as Hester , a woman who leaves her husband for a younger man . Terrence Davies adapted ` ` The Deep Blue Sea '' from the 1952 play of the same name . Weisz , in one of her finest performances , opens herself beautifully to vulnerability and folly .