Glowing reviews have comes in for the locally-filmed movie On Chesil Beach after it premiered on the opening day of the Toronto Film Festival.

Critics say that Saoirse Ronan is 'remarkable' in this 'entrancing adaptation' of Ian McEwan's novel about a young couple on their honeymoon in 1962.

Variety magazine has compared the film to David Lean’s 1945 Brief Encounter in its elevation of 'two painfully civilized and polite British lovers into an image of the purest romantic ardour'.

Variety writes: "But it also has a quality all its own, a vision of love that’s shockingly old-fashioned and tinglingly audacious. It should succeed in connecting with audiences eager to experience that all-too-rare thing: a romantic drama that gets so far into the mystique of its era that it takes you somewhere you’ve never been."

The movie pairs Ronan with up-and-coming actor Billy Howle, who was in Dunkirk, another recent movie which was partly filmed in Weymouth.

Howle is considered by Variety to be 'a fiercely charismatic and commanding talent.'

On Chesil Beach is directed by Dominic Cooke, a 51-year-old theatre veteran. This is his first film.

Variety says: "Working from McEwan’s screenplay, Cooke has fashioned the material into a visually captivating romantic puzzle that reverberates with hope and tenderness and wistful loss."

Variety considers Cooke's film to be the most impressive debut of a director since Tom Ford made A Single Man.

It is set in the summer of 1962, and Edward Mayhew (Howle), a grad student in history, is on his honeymoon with Florence Ponting (Ronan), a violinist who’s the leader of an amateur string quartet.

The two honeymoon at a modest hotel close to Chesil Beach and circles around the big moment when they finally go to bed with each other.

The film jumps around in time, showing us who they are and how they met, and, Variety says, that’s when we start to fall in love with them as a couple. It is described as 'a happy movie with a teasing mystery to it' and 'asks us to toss away a crucial dimension of what we think we know about love, and to consider what love truly is'.