From book to screen: On Chesil Beach

OF THE MANY movies that are showing at the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) this year (and if I'm honest of the many films I've seen this year) it's On Chesil Beach that is the most arresting. It is great but quiet, paced but epic, deceptively simple in its premise but universally true in its heartbreak.

On Chesil Beach can best be described as an awkward love story. It's about a couple, Florence Ponting played flawlessly by Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle played by newcomer and the incredibly talented Edward Mayhew. Set in the early 1960s, Florence is a violinist of a string quartet and Billy has just graduated with a first in History. They are both from different backgrounds and classes but find themselves in love, rather madly. Something about their bond is innocent, naïve and simple in the best way possible. She walks miles to his village so they can spend the afternoon together, he sits at her violin rehearsals and encourages her musical aspirations.

The film begins on their honeymoon, at a hotel on the Dorset seashore, Chesil Beach where each of them have trepidations at the idea and the act of consummating their marriage. He is over excited and driven while she is much more restrained, bound not only by a set of conventions from a different era, but by an unknown fear that makes her unable to commit to what is needed for this marriage to work. Over the course of the evening we are shown the couple's love story, from their perspective backgrounds, such as Florence's conservative and stringent family to Billy's family who with a mother suffering from brain damage are much more open.

The movie is based on the 2007 novel of the same name by British writer Ian McEwan. The novel was selected for the 2007 Booker Prize shortlist. McEwan also wrote the screenplay for the film which was directed by Dominic Cooke who is known for his theatre directing and writing. On Chesil Beach is his first movie and what a first movie it is! Cooke took all the elements, the DNA of what makes McEwan's writing, style and atmosphere so uniquely his and magically translated it to the screen. It wasn't only the performances of the actors (which we are sure were guided by Cooke's expertise as a director of theatre) but also his choice in framing, composition, colour choice and even in the score. Tension and emotions are built up as much  by the silences as they are by the music, which always, somehow relates to the characters themselves and doesn't act as an after thought.  

When directing a film based on a book that was so well received, we couldn't help but wonder what resonated with Cooke about the story initially which pushed him to take on the project.

"My decision making is intuitive, its about the feeling of the writing," Cooke said at a talk at DIFF after the screening of the film, "the screen play was very good. There was an interesting mixture of, which is true of McEwan generally, a combination of a critique, like an outside view of the situation and a deep connection, an empathy with the people in the situation. I recognised the social world of it, because it is the world of my parents and my grandparents, I understood that world, it's a very held in world, very avoidant world."

The creative process can be a messy one. Especially when you are adapting a book to a movie. Here you have a story that needs to be translated visually through the eyes of a director and in collaboration with actors. So did what did Cooke need from McEwan to help him tell the story?

"I asked him about the process of writing the book," Cooke said, "because I'm always trying to get to the core, the centre of what something is. And the great thing about working with living writers is that they might be able to tell you. Sometimes they don't know and sometimes what they think it's about is not what it's actually about but it's a really good place to start."

• Dubai