Chanya Button's new film about the love affair between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West has divided critical opinion. Here's our two cents...
Director: Chanya Button
Starring: Gemma Arterton, Elizabeth Debicki, Isabella Rossellini
Running time: 110 mins
The trouble with Virginia Woolf is that depictions of her appear to be obsessed with her death, and the manner of her death. Allusions to drowning are scattered throughout the script of Vita and Virginia, and scenes beside water remind us of her fate, despite her death taking place nearly fifteen years after the film’s action occurs.
Vita and Virginia tells the story of Virginia Woolf’s brief love affair with Vita Sackville-West, an already notorious aristocrat at the time of the affair, who was married to diplomat Harold Nicholson. It shines a partial light on the lives of the Bloomsbury group, though sadly not an accurate one, and the film is not particularly kind in its portrayal of most of the characters, especially the women. Perhaps we don’t need kindness but accuracy is important.
The human connections are missing and it all comes across as rather shallow
Vita and Virginia’s love affair did not last long, but Virginia captured it in her love letter to Vita, the book Orlando. The second half of the film shows us the writing process of Orlando, and what a cold torturous process the film makes it out to be. In her diaries Virginia talks of how easy writing Orlando was, how joyful and what fun she had while writing it. It is a very funny book, full of wit and observations, full of love and joy and moments of sadness. None of that comes across in the film. Indeed Elizabeth Debicki, as Virginia, smiles only once in the 110 minute running time.
It all looks gorgeous, being filmed on location at Knole, London and Charleston House; and the leads are lovely, especially Gemma Arterton as Vita, all expensive costumes, pouts and barely repressed sensuality. The music is also well worth a mention, the score by Isobel Waller-Bridge full of long violin notes and electronic beats works beautifully. I thought Peter Ferdinando was splendid as Leonard Woolf, and I imagine Isabella Rossellini had fun in her role as Vita’s mother. However, the human connections are missing and it all comes across as rather shallow. A missed opportunity.
Did you know? Eva Green was originally cast as Virginia Woolf but dropped out. Andrea Riseborough replaced her, only to later drop out as well, leading to Elizabeth Debicki being cast.
Vita and Virginia is screening at Broadway Cinema until Monday 19 August
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