‘Midwinter Break’ Review: Aging Together, Growing Apart

Lesley Manville and Ciaran Hinds play an Irish married couple taking a vacation to Amsterdam in Midwinter Break. Stella is a retired teacher and practicing Catholic; her husband, Gerry, is a retired architect with a taste for alcohol. Though they met in Ireland, the pair relocated to Glasgow during the Troubles to raise their son, and now empty nesters, the couple—Stella says—have become “exiles from each other.” Directed by Polly Findlay and based on a novel by Bernard MacLaverty, who wrote the screenplay with Nick Payne, Midwinter Break is a slow-moving, old-fashioned film with a sappy score and mellow mood.

For much of the trip the pair keep to polite etiquette and easy silences, until the cozy atmosphere splinters when Stella confesses her longing to lead “a more devout life.” The film’s main trouble is the pacing. The inciting incident is apparently Stella booking the vacation in the first scene, yet precious little conflict occurs until long afterward, when Stella finally confronts her husband about feeling unfulfilled.

midwinter break, lesley manville, ciaran hinds, polly findlay, bernard maclaverty, nick payne, amsterdam, glasgow, aging couple, pacing