By Staci Layne Wilson
@StaciWilson

An elderly couple living in a small picturesque town, Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and her husband Geoff (Tom Courtenay) are retired and they don’t lead very exciting lives – but they are planning a big party to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. So perhaps that’ll add a touch of zing, at least for an afternoon.

At first it seems the affectionate oldsters are settled as can be in their twilight years… they love each other, but there’s no passion in their martial life. And that’s fine. It’s fine, that is, until one week before the landmark gala, a letter arrives addressed to Geoff. Its writer informs him that the long-lost body of his first love has been discovered, frozen in the icy glaciers of the Swiss Alps. As the party nears, Kate grows more and more suspicious and as secrets come to light, it seems there might not be a marriage left to celebrate.

I’m making 45 Years sound like a murder mystery or a suspense thriller. It could have been, but it’s not. It’s about the quiet, insidious unraveling of a union that perhaps wasn’t as tightly wound as the wife thought. Kate believed she knew Geoff… but then she goes exploring and finds his old keepsakes tucked up in the attic, and when she watches his demeanor go from complacent to complex, she realizes there has always been a ghost haunting them for the past forty-five years.

45 Years is not story-driven, it’s character-driven – and how exquisitely nuanced these people are! Rampling and Courtenay are maestros of minimalism, and writer-director Andrew Haigh lets them (and us) breathe. Slow and icy, and majestic, as a melting glacier, 45 Years is a movie you’ll savor until there’s nothing left.

45 Years will be released wide on January 22, 2016.

1 hour 35 minutes

Rated R

Get times and tickets at Fandango.com

45 YEARS Review — Glacial, in a Majestic Sort of Way