British acting at its best - and Tom Courtenay still in the game

The British chamber drama 45 Years is a tight, troubling, realistic movie (Andrew Haigh) about an elderly couple - Charlotte Rampling at a youthful-looking 70-year-old retired teacher and, amazingly, Tom Courtenay (still around, and still great!) as her 80-something husband of an eponymous 45 years, living in a nice, orderly country home in what appears to me to be Norfolk - and their marriage is upended by the sudden news (not much or a spoiler here, this happens in the first 2 minutes) that the body of his long-time-past girlfriend has been recovered - she died in an accident on a glacier in Switzerland, they were hiking together, and climate change has melted the glacier revealing her body preserved in ice. That's an apt symbol for their marriage, which is at times sweet and tender but also beset by darkness and secrets, now gradually being revealed (climate change might have been a good title for the movie), leading to much conversation (movie is based on a short story, and seems it - I'd like to read the story, David Constantine's, In Another Country) and to a few powerful climactic scenes - TC's drunken breakdown after a reunion gathering at the factory where he used to work, and his speech at the celebration of their 45th anniversary (and Rampling's silence throughout). the movie shows British acting - so fine and understated and literary - at its best, and though it's not the most exciting or dramatic movie of the year it's a smart pro job all around. And added later in the day: Forgot to mention the great soundtrack, ranging from Lloyd Price and the Platters to Sibelius.