45 Years 2015

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Rampling has never received an Oscar nomination, but she deserves one for this performance. Courtenay, who has two Oscar nods under his belt, rates another one for helping Rampling reach this peak Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: At some point in her 50-year career, Rampling became one of the world's great actresses. Driven by her and Courtenay's work, and by director Andrew Haigh's limpid style, the film is devastating. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine: The devastating truth of 45 Years, so beautifully wrought, is that even the most devoted couples are made up of two people who are essentially alone. Read more

Charles Gant, Variety: Haigh's casting choices for the two lead roles pay rich dividends. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: At a spare 95 minutes, this is a film of no wasted scenes or unnecessary subplots, stripped down to something tough and focused and vivid. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: This is not an actual horror movie, but the tension grows so great in some scenes you might mistake it for one. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "45 Years" is a movie about intuition and inner lives, and you have to look fast to catch all its resonances. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: This sober British drama showcases Rampling in a superb performance. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: To know is not the same as to possess, and at any rate, possession is never permanent. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: It's cathartic, and moving, without any of the usual obvious contrivances or manipulations. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Haigh understands, as his actors certainly do, that it is possible to hold more than one love in one's heart. This may not be the most romantic of conceptions, but it hits home. Read more

Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter: Do not expect blazing emotional fireworks, just finely calibrated performances and deep reserves of inner torment. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: "45 Years" is a quietly explosive film, a potent drama with a nuanced feel for subtlety and emotional complications. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Sometimes, just when you think you have things figured out, life throws a curve ball. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Haigh makes his intentions so obvious-and makes his actors display them so blatantly-that all imagination is foreclosed. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Director Andrew Haigh keeps to a realistic, minimalist approach as do his two stars - each of them mainstays of classic British cinema, and together a formidable duo. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: A devastatingly intimate tale about a couple unsettled late-in-life, by an unexpected revelation. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: Pairing Rampling with Courtenay was an ingenious move, and not only because the two perform a beautifully calibrated pas de deux. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Mr. Courtenay, a naturally demonstrative actor, registers a convincing blend of longing, confusion and shame. Ms. Rampling, a stiller, deeper-running pool, conveys emotions so strange and intense that they don't quite have names. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: 45 Years is a study in economy, in the beautiful symmetry of word and image and music. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Casts a hell of a spell. And Courtenay and Rampling reward the film with performances of uncommon subtlety and feeling. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: In the beautifully acted drama"45 Years," a marriage lives and dies; we watch its agonized struggle, like a butterfly impaled on a pin. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: What's the big deal? How does an entire film come of this? There are satisfying answers to these questions, but to state them would be to ruin a perfectly good movie. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: 45 Years is about the relationship of the present to the past and of our past loves to our present lives-a relationship that, like any good marriage, remains a total mystery. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The year is early but I'm convinced "45 Years" is one of the best films you'll see in 2016. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Daringly unsentimental, "45 Years" makes a persuasive case that marriage demands not only patience, but guts. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: 45 Years exposes the paradoxical balance of the successful marriage, one that requires a sentimental suspension of disbelief on the one hand and a hard-headed ability to deal with the everyday on the other. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Both actors deliver a master class in expression by understatement. The most unsettling of ghosts, we are moved to realize, are the ones we try hardest to deny. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Has so much to say about growing old and past regrets and relationships, and its power comes from articulating so little of that in words. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: It's a film of small moments and tiny gestures that leaves a very, very big impression. Read more

Liz Braun, Toronto Sun: A movie that will shatter you. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: As we gaze at and listen to these paradigmatic performers, whose characters reflect on nearly a half-century together - almost as long as the leads have been icons - the movie becomes a tender unofficial career retrospective for both. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Less is not only more in "45 Years," Andrew Haigh's study of marriage and memory, it is eloquently and anguishingly more, and what's unspoken is almost deafening. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Haigh knows how to thread a story in a way that makes it feel deliberate and spontaneous, so that when it reaches its climax, viewers feel that it's both inevitable and utterly devastating. Read more