Hope Gap

audience Reviews

, 70% Audience Score
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    Annette Benning's performance was total over acting and her faux accent was terrible. This story was clearly a stage play, which did not translate to a movie. Seemed to be a vanity project for Annette Benning, whom I usually like, but she was completely unlikeable in this movie. No point to this movie!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    This is a deadly dull family drama in which unlikeable characters spout dialogue that sounds more like excerpts from self-help books than actual conversation. Not a lot happens here, which is fine, but being trapped with these people for 101 minutes soon becomes irritating and rather monotonous. Performances are all over the map. Bening's accent reminds me of those Carol Burnett sketches featuring the overacting stage thespians. I understand that Nighy's character is supposed to be repressed but it's a horribly one-note role and performance - call it cinematic sleepwalking. It's impossible to believe that these two characters lasted together 29 minutes let alone 29 years. O'Connor has a couple nice scenes as their son but it is an underwritten role and he doesn't feel overly connected to either parent. I am shocked that this wasn't adapted from a play as it feels extremely stagy and stilted. For a good movie about a crumbling long term marriage, check out 45 YEARS featuring Tom Courtenay and an extraordinary Charlotte Rampling. The differences in quality between these two films is night and day.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    This movie is what I call a "talky" where the acting is in the dialogue. The three main characters were outstanding. This was Annette's movie. She was phenomenal. The emotion she conveyed was spot on. Emotions like these (hurt manifesting as anger) are difficult to convey but she really nailed it so well. Younger people may not be able to relate as well as older people but that doesn't mean it isn't worth watching. Riveting!!!
  • Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
    It's an "adult" relationship story about long marriage that failed. I wish I liked it more than I did, because I want more adult stories in film. But, it seems better suited to the theater than film. Adding the various poems with grand visuals and maudlin music actually comes across as rather cheap storytelling. It is an interesting premise, but I think I may prefer to just read the poems.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    Should have been better with such good actors. It was like watching a very slow play.
  • Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
    A wife is blind-sided by the news that her spouse has been deeply unhappy for a long time and minutes later, watches him walk out of the family home/marriage, entertaining no possibility of a return. Views the end of a long marriage through the lenses the three lives it changes forever: the shocked and grieving "victim" who must accept her inability to fix the marriage, the adult child navigating their own grief as well as the emotional lives of his parents, and the one who has done the leaving. Poetically written and beautifully acted.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    I really like both Bill Nighy and Annette Bening. They both put in good performances. So did Josh O'Connor (Prince Charles in "The Crown"). While fundamentally a sad story for most of the film, overall it was well done and well told.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    I have a library of films that i can watch more than 5 times. I just added Hope Gap to my library. I already watched it twice. Two critics struck me odd and i feel i have to respond. 1. someone whined about Annett's accent in the film-- if you watched the film and all you noticed the incurvate accent then this film is not for you. There is so much more with this film than just accent. Annette Benning is brilliant as always.. she could not be more precise than she is about the character.. 2. Someone said - Boring. it is strange that the author of that critique could not distinguish sad from boring .. that is quite scary... . Dull perception of things is not an opinion .. so just don't write dullness if the film is not for you . And lastly ---- it is a brilliant film... beautifully written, beautifully shot and acted.. i love poetry and i have to thank to the director for sharing the beautiful poems through this film and Annette for reading them so so so marvelously.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    I assume this is a movie for someone who is going through a break-up and isn't over it yet - or at least it might help someone in such a situation. For me, personally, the film didn't stir up any real emotion even though I've obviously been heartbroken as well. I also wondered why they cast Annette Benning - an actress like Emily Watson would probably have brought much more to the part and the movie.
  • Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
    All three actors are wonderful in their depth and subtleties, the writing is magnificent, do not let its simplicity fool you, it goes straight to the heart of what a failing marriage is and can do, and it never tells the audience what to think. To get to such clarity, simplicity is a mark of genius.