Vita & Virginia

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Vita & Virginia_720p(480P)

source: Vita & Virginia

Both the actresses played their respective characters so well, especially Elizabeth (Virginia). It felt like a realistic portrayal of their historical counterparts. The script was really well written, the lines, the reading of their letters - so beautiful and I loved the music tieing it all in. Very different but it just worked. I honestly feel like this movie could've scored a lot higher with the critics but I am a gay woman who loves poetry so I don't know, perhaps it only speaks to a few of us. It's a slow build but I feel the fiercest and memory lasting romances always start that way.

Virginia Woolf may be one of those authors you've noticed but never been curious enough to read whilst the then more popular Vita Sackville-West isn't even on the bookshelf. This film sheds some of light on them both during the British Interwar period when only heterosexuality could be expressed in public whilst same sex relationships took place behind closed doors. It's a relatively low budget film focussing, mostly indoors, upon the relationship between two female authors with a Downton Abbey or Brideshead Revisited feel to backdrops at Knole House or Bloomsbury in London , a story about angst and surging passion within the British white aristocratic and middle classes. Both characters have huge and complex back stories, so this movie could only focus on one story, being how and why Virginia Woolf came to write Orlando. This movie launches in the same week as Pride Week 2019, a salutatory reminder just how hypocritical the British can be when it comes to their attitudes towards same sex relationships, identity and the expression of them at a time when Populism is on the rise again. If you prefer watching adults prancing around in capes dropping American cliches in front of big budget CGI backdrops then this movie isn't for you, but if you are curious about English literature, it's context in 1920's London and want a grownup story then this even-paced movie is. I left more curious and less afraid now to pick up and read one of Woolf's books, perhaps Orlando, to contrast sexuality in the British 1920s and 2020s.

First, let me say I'd go see Gemma Arterton reading the phone book: she has the rare facility of being able to play period stories as well as contemporary ones. She's great as Gemma Bovery and the Duchess of Malfi. She's well supported by Isabella Rossellini as Lady Sackville who tries without success to call Vita back to reality. Second, what quirk of casting gave us Elizabeth Debicky, not yet thirty, as Virginia Woolf who started her three-year relationship (1925-28) with Vita at age 43? She just can't carry off the part of a woman in early middle age, and what's more she has this irritating drawl/vocal fry that put me off for most of the picture. So if you wish to see this interesting story, be aware it's been handled before (Portrait of a Marriage, The Hours) and sometimes better.

The characters speak in cryptic tongues, and I just don't understand the story. Everything else is beautiful from the sets to the costumes. Too bad I just cannot connect with the main characters at all.

Greetings again from the darkness. The historical landscape of relationships is littered with the remains of artist couples who began with a cosmic connection and ended with a sonic boom. Add in the socially toxic matter of same-sex attraction from a century ago, and you have a starting point for the romance-friendship-inspiration between writers Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Director Chanya Button co-wrote the script with Eileen Atkins, and it's adapted from Ms. Atkins play and the personal letters of Virginia and Vita ... correspondence that covered many years and hundreds of letters. Gemma Arterton (TAMARA DREWE, 2010 and QUANTUM OF SOLACE, 2008) stars as writer Vita Sackville-West, a successful poet, novelist, and columnist. Vita was also known for her free spirited ways, and sometimes scandalous behavior. Virginia Woolf is played by Elizabeth Debicki ("The Night Manager", THE GREAT GATSBY), and she does really nice work capturing the troubled genius, and the glimmers of hope during her time with Vita. The two women were so very different in their approach to life and writing, although each faced their own challenges. We see their first meeting, and the immediate enchantment that occurs as their eyes meet across the room. However, what makes their relationship interesting is the long and winding path to consummation. The interesting parts come as Vita toys with the fragile Virginia, though it's clear their connection is quite strong. Though the connection was strong, the relationship was quite complex. Vita was a fan of Virginia's talent. Virginia was an admirer of Vita's strength and confidence. They seemed to push each other - sometimes for the better, other times for the worse. The film opens as Ms. Woolf's book "Jacob's Room" is being typeset and printed. It's quite an artistic way to show the mechanics of the process, and credit goes to Cinematographer Carlos De Carvalho for a segment that would typically be little more than filler. We learn about Vita's secretly "open" marriage to diplomat Harold Nicholson (Rupert Penry-Jones) and her constant battle with her mother Lady Sackville (Isabella Rossellini) over scandals and the family reputation. Virginia's husband Leonard (Peter Ferdinando) runs their printing business, and is seen as vital to his wife's emotional stability, despite the void in other marital aspects. Virginia's artist sister Vanessa Bell (Emerald Fennell) is quite an interesting character whose backstory (also a part of the Bloomsbury Group) is teased enough that she might deserve her own film. The film features a couple of memorable lines of dialogue, both spoken by Vita. During a BBC radio program she boldly claims "Independence has no sex", and in an early discussion with Virginia states "Popularity is no sign of genius". Vita's brazen step traveling as a man with her previous lover Violet Keppel is mentioned, but mostly this is focused on the class differences and the 'snatched moments' for Vita and Virginia. Vita's exotic spirit and Virginia's struggle with mental health are made clear (even using special effects for the latter). "Visions" of conversations bring the words on the letter pages to life, though it does seem that the filmmakers played things a bit too safe in order to capture a mainstream audience. The music of Isobel Waller-Bridge (Phoebe's sister) brings a contemporary feel but it's at times in contrast to the high gloss presentation. For the women who wrote and inspired the amazing novel "Orlando", and led one of the more tumultuous historical lesbian affairs, it could be argued that they deserved a bit more risk taking on the big screen. Still, "X" marks the spot for Virginia's writing room, and we do understand why discretion might be the right call.

Vita and Virginia: A story of the romance between Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Arterton) and Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki). Both were novelists and though Vita outsold Virginia she envied her literary standard. The vulnerable Woolf and the flamboyant West made for a troubled relationship. They first meet at a party where Virginia is dressed in male Elizabethan costume, bringing to mind Tilda swinton in Orlando. Their growing friendship is related through letters where the actors speak to camera, when problems de coeur occur, one of them will remain tight-lipped. Virginia was regarded by many as just being mad but her illness was central to her genius as the film so richly illustrates. The novel Orlando by Woolf was inspired by her affair and friendship with Vita. Director and co-writer Chanya Buttons delivers an interesting snapshot of a period in Woolf's life, the Bloomsbury set and the decadence of the British Ruling Class in the 1920s. 8/10.

Rarely have I been so completely bored watching a film. It ended and the audience honestly seemed stunned. Motionless. How could you make a film about two interesting writers so boring and with such awful dialogue?