Mrs. Dalloway

Starring:Vanessa Redgrave, Natascha McElhone, Michael Kitchen, Alan Cox, Sarah Badel, Lena Headey, John Standing, Robert Portal, Oliver Ford Davies, Hal Cruttenden, Rupert Graves, Amelia Bullmore, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Hardy, Richenda Carey, Selina Cadell, Katie Carr, Amanda Drew, Phyllis Calvert, John Franklyn-Robbins
Director: Marleen Gorris
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product Type: DVD

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Vanessa Redgrave glows from within as the heroine of this superb adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel. As Clarissa Dalloway prepares to host a sumptuous party, her mind wanders back to a summer in her youth, when she was courted by an eager young man--a young man whose much older self will come to the very party she's preparing. Mrs. Dalloway moves fluidly between the past and the present, exploring the shifts in perspective and understanding with an unsentimental but graceful eye. What's most stunning is the remarkable interplay between the younger and older actors, who truly seem to be different versions of the same character (the young Clarissa is played by Natascha McElhone). Beautifully directed by Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line), the movie also features Rupert Graves as a shell-shocked soldier who crosses Clarissa's path. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

Excellent!.......2007-04-16

Excellent film - beautiful scenery and wonderful costumes. Easily takes you into the time period (early 20th century London). Touching and profound. Vanessa Redgrave is radiant with a superb supporting cast. A real sense of Virginia Woolf comes through. Extremely fine film on many levels.

A Classic.......2005-10-26

What a movie! What a classic! Classic as they come.All should have taken home an Oscar.

An excellent going away gift..........2004-12-02

...for someone you detest, but for whom convention dictates such: Prospective movie heaven transmutes into actual movie hell. By comparison, "My Dinner With Andre" is action-adventure.

Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway (the older, portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave) reminisces (ad nausea, as do others) about past relationships, love affairs (with lesbian overtones), or lack thereof. Between reminiscences, she plans that evening's house party. The reminiscences are interminable flash-backs, flash-forwards and flash-sideways between the cast of characters as young adults and two modern-day threads thirty years later. The film's first 53 minutes contains 41 such flashes, averaging every 1.3 minutes. The total 92 minutes contain 49 such flashes, averaging every 1.88 minutes. (The horror this reviewer experienced, dear reader, in the interests of an accurate review!) Sporadically (sowing more confusion) parallel, irrelevant and unrelated side-flashes occur: Ex-soldier Septimus experiences post-traumatic stress syndrome because of the battlefield death of war-buddy Evans. Sixty minutes and eight side-flashes in, Septimus commits suicide, fortuitously ending these irrelevant detours.

Young Clarissa is portrayed by Natascha McElhone. Peter Walsh, rejected lover from Clarissa's early life, is alternately portrayed by Michael Kitchen (older) and Alan Cox (younger); Richard Dalloway, the rival who Clarissa married, by John Standing (older) and Robert Portal (younger). Summing the time jumps in this flick would give whole new meaning to the title of Carl Claudy's 1933 novel "A Thousand Years A Minute". Moral: When doing 30-year flash-backs, minimize them and avoid character close-ups at all costs! Clarissa is half a head taller than both Peter and Richard in older age, previously being inches shorter, with other attribute disparities. Even sneaky camera angles (including platforms?) don't succeed.

Dialog is mostly trite drivel. Clarissa's voice-overs reach a peak of foppish snobbery and arrogance (shades of "Scarlet Pimpernel") during the big party, where her over-riding thought, amidst all this past love-life havoc, is the house party's success. (Is the film's whole point Clarissa's fundamental shallowness and Peter's great good fortune in inadvertently not marrying her?)

This reviewer has not read the book, but this turkey offers nothing which would motivate such. The DVD's picture is fine, except the presentation is non-anamorphic widescreen, meaning that using a system which assumes anamorphic input (for example a high-end HDTV and compatible DVD player) will likely produce unexpected results! Sound volume tends to be uneven.

Completes the Original Novel.......2004-11-27

I recommend this film as an afterthought to the original novel by Virginia Woolf; it will clarify any confusion and bring an intimacy to Woolf's wordy explanations.

Mrs. Dalloway (Vanessa Redgrave/Natascha McElhone) begins her day on a journey to buy flowers for her party. Along the way she encounters a mysterious man ravaged by the memory of war named Septimus Warren Smith (Rupert Graves) who will become a factor towards the end of her delightful day of contemplation. Clarissa Dalloway meets a man from her past, Peter Walsh (Michael Kitchen/Alan Cox) and memories of her exuberant youth flood her with thoughts as she goes about her day as an English upper crust wife. Added to Clarissa's memories are thoughts of her long lost friend Sally (Sarah Badel/Lena Headley) a young woman who once embraced the immaturity of whims. So that in the end a day of celebration becomes a deeper exploration into life than Mrs. Dalloway could have ever expected.

Virginia Woolf wrote the original novel, "Mrs. Dalloway," in 1925 and she intentionally wanted to stir a contemplated thought process into the art of a novel. She succeeded in that her novel is considered a modern classic and is timeless but extraordinarily complicated. However once read I believe that this film will bring about a closeness to Woolf's original characters and some closure to the reading experience. The actors in this film are all very good with a few standouts like, Redgrave, Graves and McElhone. Thankfully the film stays very close to the original novel and any changes are more of an awakening thought than true alterations. Add "The Hours," (novel/DVD) as an added exploration into Woolf's mind as a writer.

Mrs. Dalloway plans a party and remembers young Clarissa.......2004-09-26

Virginia Woolf's novel "Mrs. Dalloway" examines one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, in which the title character prepares for a party and looks back on the point in her life when she choose Richard Dalloway over Peter Walsh. Meanwhile, the mentally ill war veteran Septimus Warren Smith spends his last day on earth. The action of the novel exists primarily in the consciousness of the characters, for the story itself is essentially plotless and written in the stream-of-consciousness style of James Joyce. Although written in the omniscient third-person voice, Woolf manages to enter the consciousness of her various characters, who are not as unconnected as they might seem to be, and reveal their feelings.

Translating this novel to the screen requires that it be done by those who have a strong understanding and affection for the authors and her characters. Vanessa Redgrave is clearly one of those people and she commissioned Eileen Atkins to write the script so that she could play the title character. Atkins is a Woolf scholar who not only played the author in a one-woman stage piece but also wrote "Vita and Virginia," in which she and Redgrave played Woolf and her lover Vita Sackville-West. Atkins chooses to allow us only into the inner thoughts of Mrs. Dalloway, using voice-over narration to reveal the thoughts that she would never speak out loud. Those who have read the novel might not enjoy the film more than those who have not, since there are always limitations with bringing any literary masterpiece to the screen, but they will certainly understand it more, especially the first part of the film.

A strength of this 1997 film is how easily we accept that Natascha McElhone as the young Clarissa grows up to be Vanessa Redgrave's Mrs. Dalloway. It is young Clarissa who chooses young Richard (Robert Portal) over not only young Peter (Alan Cox), but also over young Sally Selton (Lena Headey), whose kiss bespeaks something that is not going to even be thought about. Now Richard Dalloway (John Standing) is a cabinet official, Peter Walsh (Michael Kitchen) has come home from India, and Sally is now Lady Rosseter (Sarah Badel). Of course Mrs. Dalloway's thoughts go back to her fateful decision, made over the objections of her friends, when she accepted her life of comfortable sameness. But her concern over the evening's party is just as big of a concern. For those who are trying to figure out the point of the story the seemingly unrelated plotline involving Septimus Smith (Rupert Graves) and his Italian wife (Amelia Bullmore) helps the pieces come together, especially once Mrs. Dalloway's thoughts provide the big picture.

Dutch filmmaker Marleen Gorris, who won as Oscar for "Antonia's Line," brings this film in at 97 minutes and while I think "Mrs. Dalloway" the film captures the essence of the novel, I cannot find it approaches the depth. What makes the novel profound is not the end point that it reaches when we reach the close of a day in the life of Clarissa Dallowy, but the journey through her jumbled thoughts. For Christmas I gave my eldest daughter the movie "The Hours" along with the Michael Cunningham novel and Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," and I would think others would benefit from immersing themselves in the works of, and about, Virginia Woolf.

Average customer rating:

Excellent!
A Classic
An excellent going away gift...
Completes the Original Novel
Mrs. Dalloway plans a party and remembers young Clarissa

Mrs. Dalloway
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave , Natascha McElhone , Michael Kitchen , Alan Cox , and Sarah Badel
Director: Marleen Gorris
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 6305570051
Release Date: 2003-01-28