Movie Review: Hope Gap (2019)

Hope Gap is a 2019 British drama film written and directed by William Nicholson, adapted from his 1999 play The Retreat from Moscow. Married couple Edward and Grace live in a seaside home in Seaford, Sussex, near the cliffs of Hope Gap, a place that also holds fond memories for their son, Jamie.

Main Cast
Annette Bening as Grace
Bill Nighy as Edward
Josh O'Connor as Jamie

Synopsis

Grace and Edward have been married for 29 years and live in a seaside home in Seaford, Sussex. In their fragile marriage, Edward, a passive man, tells their son, Jamie, that he is leaving his outspoken wife, Grace, for Angela, a former student’s mother. Grace is shocked by the news and struggles with anger and sadness. Over time, she begins to rebuild her life by volunteering at a crisis helpline. In a final meeting with Edward at Angela’s home, Grace refuses his offer of friendship and begins to move on.

My Take: A withering story of surviving a marriage that is dying…dying…gone

Edward (Bill Nighy) , one of the main characters in the movie, a history teacher, explains during his lecture on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, “As the men dropped in the intense cold, they were stripped of clothing by their own comrades and left naked in the snow still alive. It was a kind of survival strategy. In extremest (sic) moments, men can be cruel. Is that wrong? Do we blame them? Would any of us have behaved any better?”

It’s a foreshadowing of his cruelty towards his wife and of his cowardice, dropped early in the film, a tease for his extramarital relationship with his mistress Angela for over a year before he decided to inform his wife of his philandering.

Annette Bening’s performance as a strong-headed wife, Grace, stays true to her fortitude but reveals a struggling will in the face of a separation. I have seen this character before in Bening’s performance in the 2010 movie “The Kids Are All Right” opposite Juliana Moore, where they played a lesbian couple. In that movie, Bening as Nic mustered her strength not to break amid the infidelity of Jules (Moore) and their children’s biological sperm donor father Paul (Mark Ruffalo).

Struggling to keep oneself together, mind, body, heart, ego, and self-respect, with your sanity as the only glue, without imploding is a difficult feat. This situation reverberates with one of Grace’s lines about “being murdered without bleeding”. But let’s set that aside for later.

This movie takes me back to where I had been before, and my heart bleeds anew …

I have to be honest, I am in rage over Edward’s character because every word he says brings me back to those memories when my father left my mother for other women, yes women. Philandering husbands are cut from the same cloth. My opinion: They are indolent to work on current relationships, delusional that they deserve real love, and quick to play the victim when things get rough. They are cowards when it comes to facing their shortcomings. I can go ballistic on this. They need someone to boost their ego. I wish AI creators would develop ego robots for these kinds of men.

With Hope Gap, the story crescendos around Grace’s struggle to stay sane while being misunderstood by her son, who seems to mirror his own failure to find a woman who will not overpower him like his mother’s strong persona. He (possibly subconsciously) sides with his father, meeting him occasionally and feeding his ego by providing information about his mother’s whereabouts.

For most audiences, Edward asking about Grace’s well-being every time he meets up with Jamie might be construed as caring or being concerned. Flat no. Edward harbors guilt but needs to assuage it by making sure the human being he abandons is recuperating and still alive.

I am amusingly surprised that my reaction each time Edward takes a dig at his food, slurps his ice cream, or drinks his coffee is that I can only mutter under my breath, “I hope you choke.”

Grace, although distraught by her husband’s betrayal, has remained unbreakable, though thoroughly shaken. She refuses to sign the divorce papers, reasoning that she would gain more benefits if her husband dies while they remain married, as confirmed by the lawyer. And true, because that would make the mistress forever a mistress. Good shot, Grace!

When my own father died, even though my parents’ marriage had never been dissolved, he left nothing for my mother or for us. My sisters had to fight for my father’s measly pension so that my mother could have at least something to live on in her old age. When he was still alive and still had strong knees to gallivant, my father bought a house but sold it to follow one of his girlfriends in the U.S., who eventually gave up on him and married someone else. Then, I heard, the proceeds from the house sale were “stolen” by another mistress who had access to it.

Antagonism

Back to the movie, the lover, Angela, left by her husband, appears only near the end of the story and, like many other mistresses, flaunts her entitlement as someone chosen by the infidel.

There is also a scene where Angela’s hand appears to place what might be a cup of tea on Edward’s desk while he goes through his notes. Such a miserable dynamic of a relationship, with Edward finally getting his “ideal life” of “do(ing) the same thing at the same time every day,” as revealed by Grace to Jamie during a kitchen scene earlier in the movie.

Angela… Angela… Edward has mentioned his concubine’s name more than a few times whenever he refers to how he might have idealized love and loving.

I know I am biased now when I appraise the movie, yet I celebrate how Grace has continued to pursue her “anthology,” with her son successfully creating a website for her collection of poems. Her joining a helpline center enables her to bequeath her relationship wisdom to strangers who call in anonymously for advice. Grace’s small, old green car, with its dented door, is a visual representation of her hope—nearly battered yet thriving the test of time.

Dead figure

As for Edward, even if he has Angela, in my opinion, his spirit had already perished when his father died. While in mourning, that was the time he met Grace on the train—the “wrong train”, as he said. Grace’s presence failed to resuscitate him, or rather, he did not acknowledge her presence as a second lease on life. When Edward cohabitated with Angela, it was not out of “love” but as an escape into another form of life that would remind him of what he was when  his father was still around. Edward’s selfishness translates into self-preservation. Angela is merely a scapegoat, and in the scenes where her name is mentioned, it is actually Edward’s alter ego speaking. Hence, “With Angela it’s easy,” Edward said, and “the way I am suits Angela.” Edward has taken the road of least resistance because he is spiritually dead.

Angela also represents Edward’s decision to stay in the loop of being controlled. If he left Grace because she was too exacting or too demanding for him to be “right,” Angela’s persona is just the same, or even worse, as she dictates how Edward should feel or act, as gleaned from his lines: “Angela felt why drag it out…,” “Both Angela and I think the less contact I have, the sooner Grace will move on,” “Angela was right…,” and “Angela says Grace and I weren’t suited.” Angela feeds words and emotions to Edward’s already dead psyche. He has remained an automaton. In real life, it is only a matter of time before Angelas discard lifeless Edwards when they no longer move along their pulling strings.

And in my opinion, the “deadness” is visually represented in the movie, not assuming this was the filmmaker’s intent. Edward moving into Angela’s home—a “dull” place, as Grace observed when she visited—is actually minimalist, nearly box-like, and filled with glass panels. I can liken it to a “coffin.”

Fearing unhappiness; compatibility as an illusion

Of the lessons I picked up from the movie, one that stands out is the poem written and recited by Jamie in the final part of the film. He said, “Forgive me for fearing your unhappiness.” Yes, sometimes we need to fear others’ unhappiness to recognize the faces of empathy and vulnerability. Nowadays, most of us no longer feel deeply for others. There are times when some people even mock another’s unhappiness. Have we gone numb or become so unsympathetic that we only hear our own voice and pay less attention to others?

Another lesson is that the movie shattered my belief that, for a relationship to work—or at least, that it is a bonus if—the partners must be on the same intellectual frequency. Grace is level-headed, intelligent, and logical, though quirky (she must be a Gemini!), and the same goes for Edward, so they could speak the same lingo. But communication degrades when one or both stop reaching out, asking questions, or answering them—or when there is no longer any interest in conversing about mundane things or exploring each other’s vulnerabilities. When communication descends to “wiki-ing,” a term coined from Edward’s hobby of correcting Wikipedia articles, it can signal a dying connection, a dialogue breakdown. It is quite a tragedy when someone begins their abandonment by curtailing intimate dialogue.

And the cruelest is when the person who betrays resorts to gaslighting:
“When you say she adored me, no, that wasn’t me. That was someone she invented, the Edward she wanted.”

I still remember my father’s line, like rubbing salt mixed with sulfur on our, the children’s, wounds, “You rejected me…”, just because we lived with our mother in her house, near our school, our friends, and our other relatives. I was only in kindergarten, and our eldest had just started high school.

Fine isn’t the same as Happy

Regardless of some audience comments labeling Grace as a “horrible person” or “difficult to empathize with,” the movie is a must-watch for women who continue to be blindsided by their partners—whether with consent or not. The film generously provides subtle clues about when a relationship starts to go kaput. In real life, a strong woman in a relationship is often the misunderstood one. Just because she does not cry in public, tear out her hair, or make scenes for spectacle does not mean she is fine. “Fine isn’t the same as happy,” as Grace puts it.

The movie’s ending offers no overt, formulaic vindication—no Grace finally meeting her literary soulmate, no Jamie getting married, no Edward dying, leaving Angela penniless. There is no “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” kind of justice—just a mistress getting her way, a philandering husband masking his failures with a lover, a child caught in the crossfire of separation and hurting deeply, and a dumped wife enduring depression that comes in waves.

The heaviness I feel while watching the movie stays with me long after the credits roll, much like a scarred wound refusing to heal, nicked by the knife of repressed memories of my parents’ separation and their bad decisions.

Trust, like a marriage that has been “murdered,” does not bleed—it just dies again and again. Betrayal knows no healing or closure, only forgetting.

Final notes

Don’t idealize your relationships—whether romantic or platonic—because people change every day. So, what are relationships for? Good question. Honestly, I do not have a logical, objective answer. In my opinion, the only relationship that should stick is the parental bond between a parent and their child. (Please note, it is not even necessarily mutual. But when we are blessed with parenthood, whether we are ready or not, our children are entitled to unconditional love. For me, that is non-negotiable.)

Making the relationship a “fixed habit” is a bad habit. When a relationship becomes merely routine—going through the motions without attention, curiosity, or emotional engagement—it loses its vitality. Partners may coexist, but they stop truly connecting, learning about each other, or growing together. Habit without conscious effort risks turning love into obligation, and over time, what once nurtured intimacy can become a source of resentment or indifference. A relationship thrives only when it is lived actively, not mechanically.

On the other hand, relationships need not keep score or tally who wins today and who must win tomorrow. I think this dynamic is best described as a dance—you both move to the tune of the day, with coordination and mutual control. In certain steps, when one partner is more familiar with the routine, they guide the other through the maneuver; and vice versa.

May I borrow Edward’s philosophy about God: “God is not information; God is a conviction.” For me, God is neither. God cannot be contained, defined, or labeled. God simply is. Whether or not we have faith in God is our problem, not God’s. But for the sake of expanding on Edward’s treatise…can marriage or any significant relationship be considered a conviction? Is that not blind faith in a relationship? Or should a relationship start as “information” first, then develop into “conviction,” rather than the other way around?

In the movie, Edward liked Grace because he was “dazzled by her”. A stranger riding on the train with profound grief from the loss of his father started with a “conviction.” Then, as their relationship progressed, Edward obtained “information” that he and Grace were too different, so he walked away. What I am driving at is that a relationship is a process, and moving from “information” to “conviction” is part of that process. Anything that skips a systematic process—like “it just happened,” or quoting Edward again about his relationship with Angela, “it’s an accident”—is doomed to fail in one way or another. At the very least, the person who jumps into relationships without a process is trapped in a cycle of broken relationships.

This movie is actually a masterclass in navigating different approaches to a surviving relationship. It is surprising that a few reviews on Rotten Tomatoes say, “Hope Gap lacks enough depth to really leave an impact,” “unsatisfying…,” or “This is hopeless…” I understand that not everyone can grasp the depths of emotion experienced by someone who has been victimized by abandonment.

What a relationship ought not be:

• Weaponizing the relationship to get what one wants or to exalt one’s cause.
• Curtailing communication to achieve harmony.
• Slapping, pushing, finger-pointing, and other forms of physical harm are abuse, and are never an excuse to get one’s point across, unless used for self-defense (i.e, protection from physical danger).
• Making the problem about only one person.
• Staying in the relationship for as long as one can endure.
• Hiding one’s feelings behind work and daily activities so that they remain verbally suppressed and emotionally unexpressed.
• Making the other person the last to know your true feelings.
• Keeping your partner guessing.
• Etc.

Best Quotes
“This is a murder, Jamie. Just because there’s no blood, don’t think it’s not a murder. He’s murdering a marriage. Marriages don’t bleed, but it’s still murder.” – Grace

“If I have to manage without you, I’d rather be a widow. A widow has so much more status than a left woman.” – Grace

“Don’t ask me to take sides.” – Jamie

“Grace, can’t we…can’t we be friends?” – Edward