The durability of marriage may be one of our great cultural myths. Consider that when a couple makes it anywhere near the title of Andrew Haigh's 45 Years, the inevitable question is something to the effect of, "Wow, how do you make it work?" Nobody overtly asks that question of Kate (Charlotte Rampling) or Geoff (Tom Courtenay) as they approach their 45thwedding anniversary, but that's largely because they'd been humming along well enough for the first 44 years and 51 weeks — until Geoff receives news that the body of his previous girlfriend, Katya, has been found in the Swiss Alps, frozen stiff but otherwise unchanged from how she appeared in the 1960s. 45 Years is a ghost story in which the ghost need never appear, as Geoff becomes increasingly preoccupied with the memory of his first True Love, an obsession that is not lost on Kate. (Geoff, referring to the dead woman as "my Katya," does not help.) 45 Years follows Kate closely as she battles an impossible villain: the past — and not even her own past — as it begins to shed doubt on both her present and future. Rampling has racked up award nominations and wins for her performance, and rightfully so. But some ghosts are too strong to bust.
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