by Shahran Morshed
Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Juliette Binoche, Tom Courtenay, Anna Calder-Marshall, Florence Hunt
Intro:
… a film that stays with you for a long long time.
Watching older actors surrender themselves so completely to a performance is always a remarkable experience, particularly when the material comes so close to the realities of their own lives. There is a certain courage in allowing the camera to see the body, its vulnerabilities, its desires and the changes that time inevitably brings. Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall possess that courage in abundance in Lance Hammer’s Queen at Sea. They approach their characters with such openness and honesty that, at times, it becomes difficult to distinguish performance from life.
Eighteen years after his extraordinary debut Ballast, Hammer returns with a deeply intimate and unsettling film about ageing, dementia, sexuality and the complicated responsibilities that love brings with it.
The film begins with an unsettling discovery. Amanda (Juliette Binoche), visiting her mother Leslie (Anna Calder-Marshall) in London, and finds her having sex with her stepfather Martin (Tom Courtenay). Leslie has advanced dementia, and Amanda cannot accept that her mother is still capable of making such an important decision for herself. Martin, however, sees things differently. He has spent years caring for Leslie, looking after her everyday needs and sharing whatever remains of their married life. To him, their physical relationship is an extension of the affection they have always shared. Amanda sees a woman who may no longer be able to give consent. Martin sees a husband who refuses to abandon his wife. What follows is an increasingly painful disagreement that brings the family into contact with the police, social services and the difficult machinery of institutional care.
Hammer is careful not to turn this into a simple argument between a responsible daughter and an irresponsible husband. Martin’s devotion is real, but so are Amanda’s fears. Neither love nor good intentions can automatically settle the question of what is right for another human being.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Queen at Sea is Hammer’s visual language. Working with cinematographer Adolpho Veloso, he creates compositions that are often strangely beautiful and quietly mesmerising. Characters occupy opposite ends of rooms, appear separated by staircases and doorways, or are held within frames that make their surroundings feel almost too large for them. The camera frequently observes from a distance, as though it cannot quite enter the private world of this family. There is a peculiar stillness to these images, but never an emptiness. The houses, corridors and ordinary streets become extensions of the characters’ emotional conditions. Even the most familiar domestic spaces begin to feel unfamiliar. Hammer’s framing does not simply illustrate the disagreements; it gives physical shape to the distance growing between people who are supposed to understand one another. There is also a parallel life unfolding through Amanda’s teenage daughter, Sara (Florence Hunt), whose growing romantic interest introduces another kind of intimacy. Her world is full of discovery and possibility, while the older generation is struggling with the gradual disappearance of things once taken for granted.
Yet the film would lose much of its force without its extraordinary cast. Binoche brings a complicated mixture of frustration, helplessness and tenderness to Amanda, never allowing her concern to become entirely comfortable or self-righteous. Courtenay is magnificent as Martin, a man whose love is inseparable from his stubbornness and whose vulnerability occasionally emerges through anger. But Calder-Marshall’s performance is something truly special. She approaches Leslie without reducing her to the symptoms of a condition. There are moments when her expressions, gestures and sudden changes of attention communicate more than dialogue could ever achieve. She allows the character to remain a person, with traces of desire, humour, affection and resistance, even when the world around her increasingly questions her ability to make decisions. Watching Courtenay and Calder-Marshall together is particularly affecting. Their physical closeness carries the weight of a shared history that cannot simply be explained or dismissed. It is rare to see performers of their age approach such intimate material with this degree of honesty and fearlessness. Their joint Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the Berlinale feels like a particularly deserving recognition.
Queen at Sea does not offer a convenient answer to the questions it raises, and perhaps that is its greatest strength. The film understands that caring for someone can become an exhausting negotiation between affection, responsibility and the fear of doing harm. It also recognises that growing old does not necessarily mean losing the need for intimacy. Hammer is not interested in making his audience comfortable, nor does he attempt to turn suffering into something conventionally beautiful. Some of the film’s emotional confrontations are difficult to sit through, but they emerge from a genuine understanding of how fragile human relationships can become. The title itself carries a certain mystery, suggesting a world in which people can lose their bearings while still holding on to something they cannot entirely name. After Ballast, Lance Hammer has made a quietly devastating return. With Courtenay and Calder-Marshall giving performances of such rare openness, Queen at Sea becomes a film that stays with you for a long long time.
