by Chris Feil
“They asked me how I knew...”
“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” by The Platters is a cinematic staple, constantly showing up in films and yet hasn’t become a cliche. The song has been used for umpteen other tragic romances in film like Blue Valentine and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, not to mention countless less narratively significant needle drops on screen. But Andrew Haigh's 45 Years is the one that wrings it for every last drop of its sweeping grandeur and matches the scale of its emotion...
Here the classic is the wedding song of Charlotte Rampling’s Kate and Tom Courtenay’s Geoff, and their first dance is set to be recreated during their large anniversary celebration. But the remembered passion of the beginning of their union and the excitement for the occasion begins to slip away as the discovery of Geoff’s dead prior lover begins to make her question the bedrock of their marriage. “Smoke...” builds with a consuming emotion much like the film and Rampling’s performance, and when it finally arrives at the film’s close, Kate and the song’s feelings are opposed.
The song gets referenced early on a few times without being played for us, so it’s like the film’s freight train we’re told is coming. Sounds similar to The Platters from the era of Geoff and Kate’s beginning pop up elsewhere, like a cheerful but taunting reminder of how the glow of “Smoke...” begins to fade. It’s a sound meant to embody the “forever and always” promise Kate had expected, the convicted simplicity of love that the melody imbues with an expectation of love without stumbling blocks or compromise.
Slowly, Kate begins to shut them out. She slams off the radio at a ballad, the sound of The Turtles “Happy Together” drowns out behind the closing door of a bathroom she hides in. The clarity of feeling is too much noise to bear, too uncomplicated for the collapse going on inside her. She can’t stand the sound of happier days when she had no doubts of Geoff’s that she was Geoff’s only. The songs of their memories together have become a lie, belonging to someone else before her.
Geoff and Kate move in exactly opposite trajectories during the film, his resolve shaken by the memory of the lost woman ultimately giving way to gratitude and renewed passion for Kate. She emotionally opens the film where he ends, her warmth chipping away as she questions everything. When their big dance comes, he sings along and she’s far away.
The song’s operatic romantic certainty, one that pulls us into it as easily as the enrapt Geoff, becomes tragic when reflected against the actress’s face, feeling things as huge as the song but contrasted to its sentiment. All of the song’s effusive feeling is kept buried behind Rampling’s brimming physicality, releasing itself only as she snatches her hand aware from an unwatching Geoff. The song builds us up with feeling like a balloon and Rampling’s devastation is a deflating thumbtack in this incredible moment. It’s the power of song, craftsmanship, and performance combined for one indelible musical moment to get lost in, catching your breath and not letting you exhale with The Platters’ catharsis.
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