The film adaptation of Richard Yate’s novel had been long overdue by the time Sam Mendes took the helm of the project considering the indeterminate state its development had been in prior. Mendes’ then-wife and also costar of the yet-to-be-filmed adaptation, Kate Winslet, gave him Yate’s novel expressing her interest in the part and for him to direct. After reading both Justin Haythe’s script and the novel, he suggested that Haythe should attempt and convey what the main characters, Frank and April, are holding back and what they are not saying to each other. The first draft script was too truthful to Yate’s story and aesthetic which Mendes found as not externalizing the characters’ unspoken resentments.
Rather than follow the satirical take on the theme of conformity akin to Yate’s novel or other films before it, Mendes explores and places emphases on the relationship and its core disputes, an always relevant subject matter. Unlike his previous films which are darker in tone, Mendes incorporates a more sincere and inherent attitude to mirror the Wheelers’ volatile and oscillating romantic journey. Furthermore, to give the film the confining dynamic, Mendes shot the interior scenes of the Wheelers’ household in an actual house. Principal photography was done sequentially and on location following a near month-long rehearsal. In post-production Mendes scratched eighteen scenes from the final cut to get a less literal end-result in order to echo the essence of the novel.
