Betrayal (film) by Harold Pinter - some thoughts

I'll admit it: I've only really known Pinter as a vague "big name" in theatre, known mainly for leaving long pauses and repeating sentences. I'm more familiar with pastiche and mockery of Pinter than with the works of the man himself. I had a stab at Betrayal a couple of years ago: I though the reverse chronology thing was cool, but the short lines of widely-spaced dialogue in my edition meant that I flew through it quickly and don't remember particularly pondering the story afterwards.

Recently, as I'm currently in a Patricia Hodge phase (see my review for Private Lives), I was watching interviews with her on YouTube. I started watching one, not realising it was about her performance in the film of Betrayal. When I finished, I decided to look for the film on YouTube. I found it (with optional Portuguese subtitles) - only an hour and a half long - and decided to start watching, as the interview mentioned that the opening was very striking (literally and metaphorically). As I knew what was coming in the opening, I was already tense, but the eerie lighting and near-silence grabbed my attention immediately anyway.

During the first spoken scene, I found myself rooting for Emma (Hodge) and Jerry (Jeremy Irons), though I knew they were both being unfaithful to their respective spouses. This may be partly because I was watching out for Hodge's performance, having listened to her talk about it. However, this scene comes after the fight between Robert (Ben Kingsley) and Emma, and although she hit him first, after he hits back she seems to be in much more pain than him, turning away and sitting down. This makes him more of an unsympathetic character, and made me side more with Emma and Jerry. I wonder how the audience reacts differently in the staged version, without the extra scene at the beginning? Does the audience automatically sympathise with (or at least have more interest in) Emma and Jerry over Robert, as they are introduced first? It was an interesting choice, as it immediately set up that Emma and Robert's relationship is in trouble, and also raised the stakes as it made the audience more invested in Jerry and Emma's relationship than Emma and Robert's. (In my opinion.)

In the next scene, Robert was properly introduced in a conversation between him and Jerry. Ben Kingsley plays Robert beautifully, chillingly calm and detached, and it's difficult to tell what exactly he's thinking. Jerry becomes increasingly over-the-top and buffoonish by comparison. Robert plays games with Jerry, telling him that "you didn't know very much about anything, really, did you?". Jerry replies "No", and Robert immediately contradicts him: "Yes, you did"., showing that Robert is really in control here; he seems to know much more than he lets on and enjoys toying with Jerry over it. This set-up is repeated later in the play (earlier in the timeline), where Robert is trying to ascertain if Jerry knows that Emma told him about the affair. After Robert reveals his knowledge, the two men meander back into normal conversation, with the scene ending as Robert asks where Jerry is going on holiday in the summer. It's frightening to see how easily they return to relative normalcy, and underlines Robert's detachment from his wife and his earlier statement that he "[doesn't] give a s**t about any of this".

The scene in Venice, where Emma reveals the affair to Robert, was very well played: incredibly tense, very quiet and controlled. Hodge said in the interview that Emma was "in blind panic" in this scene, which I definitely got a sense of. In one shot she breathes in and in and in and the camera cuts away before she exhales, perfectly capturing the mounting tension. Her stillness opposite Robert's joviality and forced normalcy creates a huge contrast, and we hold our breath, waiting to see when the bomb will explode. But when Robert finds out about the affair, he merely says "Ah. Yes. I thought it might be something like that, something along those lines." Truly chilling.

When I read the script of the play, I discovered that the occasional short scenes with the children and Emma's family life were added for the film. Although the children are already referenced multiple times throughout the script, seeing them onscreen heightens the sense of betrayal; already layered, it becomes heartbreaking when the audience are reminded that the children are unknowingly caught up in it as well. Emma comes off the phone with her lover Jerry to see her daughter Charlotte standing behind her, asking "Who was it?". Emma's casual lie of "Daddy," is a knife in the heart as we realise she is betraying not only her husband, but her young children too. The betrayal is layered: Jerry is betraying his friendship with Robert, they are both betraying their respective spouses and children, Emma betrays Jerry to Robert... Also, at the beginning of the play, in the "present", Emma is having an affair with Jerry's protégé Casey, effectively "betraying" Jerry, although their relationship has been over for a long time. I wonder if she deliberately chose him in order to hurt Jerry?

The film cycles backwards and forwards in time until it reaches the beginning of the affair, in Emma's house. This was interesting: Emma was much less keen than I imagined, given how it plays out later, and Jerry was slightly predatory, lurking in the shadows. Emma wavers before accepting his hand, and the freeze-frame of their joint hands lingers over the credits. There are so many questions about this scene. Why did she do it? Was it boredom? Very possibly. Lack of attention and love from her husband? Seems fairly likely, given Robert's attitude towards her at points in the film. We later (or rather, earlier) find out that he, too, has been unfaithful, and from the start we see that their marriage is in trouble. Perhaps this is the moment that the problems start? Or maybe it was in decline already? Does Robert catch the atmosphere in the room when he enters? He certainly seems to know more than he lets on later, so perhaps he did. Annoyingly, there's no way of knowing what he caught, as the film ends there but we've already seen the future. What makes the play so fascinating, and hard to understand, is that we don't know the characters' motivations: partly because they rarely say what they mean, and partly due to the reverse chronology which means that we see the consequences of the action before the action itself. This quote from Julian Meyrick perfectly sums it up (full article here):

"Betrayal is a play that happens twice, once in front of your eyes, once in your head, when you revisit certain scenes to judge their proper weight."

Overall, I enjoyed the film: I think it was brilliantly acted, shot and edited. It was compelling to watch, even when it was kind of boring; the characters went round in circles, repeated themselves and sometimes discussed mundane topics for ages. But their performances told the story. Although I was initially only intending to watch a bit of it, I finished the film, and then went on to read the script and rewatch the film in an effort to better understand it. The dialogue is so clever, and is even better on repeat reading and viewing, as you understand the characters' motives a bit better. Patricia Hodge gives a brilliant performance as Emma. Ben Kingsley is quietly menacing as Robert and Jeremy Irons is very watchable as the charming, sometimes clueless Jerry. However, I don't think I fully understood the film, or the play, even on repeat viewing and rereading. I think it's about betrayal (obviously), but also about communication, people's enormous capacity for duplicity and what happens in relationships under the surface. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I read somewhere that the friendship of Jerry and Robert is the most important part, and their relationships to Emma are a way of one-upping each other. I personally didn't spot that, but on reflection it does make sense. And with dialogue that can be interpreted in lots of different ways, it's only fair to expect the play to have multiple meanings. In some ways, this story and its characters are as nebulous, confusing and contradictory as human relationships often are.