Alan in Belfast: Midwinter Break – an overly gentle exploration of exile and trauma (Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 20 March)

A pregnant woman was caught up in gunfire during the Troubles in what she euphemistically refers to as “as accident” in Belfast. Her baby was saved, but the not-long-married couple quickly quit Northern Ireland for a safer life in Scotland. This cinematic adaptation of Bernard MacLaverty’s novel Midwinter Break catches up Stella (Lesley Manville) and Gerry (Ciarán Hinds) in later life as they head off on a citybreak to Amsterdam and finally confront each other’s needs and coping mechanisms.

Midwinter Break becomes a film about unfulfilled promises that were made with the best of intentions . Stella continues to carry the physical and mental scars of her and her child’s escape from serious injury. (Julie Lamberton makes fleeting appearances as the young Stella.)

Her faith has been a cornerstone to coping with what happened. But this out-of-character weekend in Amsterdam quickly becomes a point of inflection in her life. Early on in the film, a Catholic priest aptly quotes from James 4 v14: “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Hinds’ Gerry is sullen and withdrawn. His veins are part blood, part whiskey. His signs of affection towards Stella can be replaced with gruff dismissals of her desires. When the pair repeat their refrain of “You and me” / “Me and you” it’s clear that they’re no longer referring to “us” but are really two separate travellers whose lives aren’t as entwined as they once were.

Hinds’ gets to deliver a monologue about Gerry’s backstory to a Derry barman in an Irish pub in Amsterdam. The words he is given to say are flat and unmoving. In sharp contrast, Manville’s equivalent scenes, exploring what’s going on in her head, are so much more stirring and Stella remains the real emotional focus of the story throughout. Although Hinds does get the funniest line in the film when he sums up the state of their relationship by uttering “Cake?!”

The film’s script maintains much of the novel’s familiar texture, but squeezes the essential plot and character journeys into 90 minutes. There’s a lot of atmosphere but the character development – particularly of Gerry – is a bit too subtle. The final scene also lacks the heft to be believable.

Midwinter Break unpacks some of the enduring trauma that people still carry from the Troubles, and also zeroes in on what triggers us to flee certain situations. The unravelling rapport between the two lead characters is well balanced by director Polly Findlay. It’s definitely a film to watch from a comfy seat in a cinema: the opening scenes are so gentle, you’d be tempted to switch channel or get up off the sofa to make a cup of tea if you were watching at home. Midwinter Break is being screened in Queen’s Film Theatre from Friday 20 March.