‘Midwinter Break’ review: Ciarán Hinds and Lesley Manville on tense vacation

We used to have more films like “Midwinter Break,” in which the combination of a couple of great actors, a gifted writer and the unfussy shepherding of a thorny, intimate scenario gave discerning moviegoers their recommended weekly allowance of adult drama about the human condition.

That’s no longer the case, so you would be forgiven for attaching more importance to the small-scale appeal of this adaptation of Irish author Bernard MacLaverty’s 2017 novel. Without gimmicks or pomp (save a picturesque setting) and through the supreme talents of Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds, it offers up an affecting two-hander about a couple on the brink who’ve never really acknowledged said precipice. As directed with low-key confidence by Polly Findlay, the movie is both good and, in a certain way, good enough.

Should a marriage be merely good enough? Because hiding in the 40-year togetherness of retired teacher Stella (Manville) and ex-architect Gerry (Hinds) is an unmistakable chasm. It’s a divide with roots in the turbulent Belfast of their youth, which necessitated starting their family in Glasgow. It manifests now in a brittleness that tints their everyday exchanges as ossifying empty nesters.

Stella’s restless energy in wanting to fix things spurs her to arrange an impromptu trip for them to Amsterdam. Initially they rekindle a genial intimacy over art, meals and the city’s beauty. She eases off her intolerance for his drinking by tagging along to bars, while he accompanies his faith-driven wife to the Begijnhof, a historical religious site of dwellings initially intended to house a sisterhood of single Catholic women. We gather her keen interest isn’t entirely touristy but also, because Hinds is so good, that his wisecracks about religion — which she bristles at — have a basis in something personal, too.

We eventually learn what it is that has kept Stella and Gerry in a state of deepening apartness. But these expected revelations aren’t as cathartic as one might hope, probably because what “Midwinter Break” had going for it was a gathering totality of unhurried observance, as if we, too, were stumbling in the dark along with these nervous dancers, who once knew each other so well yet had lost the ability to turn knowing into understanding.

Still, the chance to see Manville and Hinds give heart, soul and edge to a cracked marriage is a display of nuanced skill that no screenwriting choice (even if true to the source material) can fully hamper. Manville, one of our greatest actors, is achingly real, giving Stella the protective bearing of a wounded soldier. Hinds, meanwhile, masterfully shows an affable partner’s emotional immobility.

Findlay knows to stay out of the way when her actors are deep inside what’s lived-in about their situation, or when grace notes — especially the story’s real ties to the Troubles — needn’t be overstruck. Modest to a fault, “Midwinter Break” seems to float like something cautious and wishful, hoping along with the audience that this union’s individual strains will fall into harmony once more.