There’s got to be a way do to a romantic historical drama from an epistolary foundation, but Vita and Virginia isn’t it. In fact, it may be a sort of guide of how not to.
This is a movie based on a play that was based on letters. Real letters by real life characters chronicling a real love affair and friendship that stretched over a decade between Victoria Mary Sackville-West aka Vita and Virginia Woolf. The former poised in a role of amorous seductress drew out Virginia out of her shy reticence, but eventually her (physically and emotionally) promiscuous ways proved too much for Virginia and that was that. According to the movie, anyway. In real life, there was also a matter of Vita getting all too close to the British Fascist movement and Virginia the pacifist not approving it. But then again, Nazis wouldn’t make for such a juicy story. Or at least, the juicy story this was meant to be before the director got her grabby mitts on it and turned it into the maudlin overwritten, overdirected and overwrought mess that is it. Every so often SNL does a parody that’s just right on the money. They’ve recently done one on historical lesbian dramas, look it up, it’s perfect. Inspired by movies just like this one, movies that even perfectly decent (Atherton) and excellent (Debicki) can’t save. They sigh, they look longingly, they sigh. They do dramatic readings of letters to each other straight at the camera. They prevaricate. They talk about books. They talk like books. Do writers really talk like their books? Did they? Virginia is deemed obscure, Vita-brash. They sigh some more, they juggle their infinitely understanding spouses. They talk about writing some more. Vita, interestingly enough, although now a much lesser-known author, at her time was outselling Virginia and yet considered Virginia to be a superior writer. That created for an interesting dynamic. But then Vita went and inspired Virginia to write her (arguably) greatest work, Orlando, and suddenly she became a properly selling literary success. And to think, I only know Orlando as a Tilda Swinton movie. Anyway, it’s frustrating, nay, quietly infuriating, to think how good this movie might have been. The passionate romance of two great minds…and two attractive bodies if that’s more your thing. But every potential fire here was effectively smothered by the ridiculously languid pacing and convoluted dialogue. Debicki wasn’t the first or even the second choice for Virginia, but she’s terrific in the role…and manages to embody Virginia perfectly and prosthetic-free unlike Nichole Kidman some years ago. Albeit distractingly tall. (Also, why? Virginia Woolf was, according to the internet, 5'7". Why is she constantly played by giantesses?) Actresses have been getting taller these days, but at 6’3” she is a proper giant. A very, very slim giant rendered curveless and board-flat by the 1920s garb that really only works for very specific bodies. She’s so tall, she’s practically long. She towers over the entire cast and, dramatically so, over her costar Atherton, who even in heels has to tippy-toe for a kiss. Not that there’s that much of kissing, there’s one sex scene, but all in all this romance is too talked out to sizzle. Anyway, Debicki’s great. She was great in Tenet too, though the movie itself was a disappointment. She’s got a marvelously expressive face and lovely nuanced subtlety to her. Particularly noticeable here, because Atherton’s Vita is so overt and obvious. But a height that great has got to be restrictive. Maybe that’s why Debicki isn’t more famous. In fact, now I can’t think of what she’s been doing between the hip-hop Gatsby silliness and this. And just as Gatsby had some unconventional music choices, so does this movie, but oddly and inconsistently. The score goes from very modern party music to something like proper classical time appropriate score. It’s almost as if the score doesn’t know what it wants to be. Which in that way perfectly suits a movie that is so characterized by wasted potential. Overall, a mess, not even a hot mess, really, just a mess of longing looks and languid latitudes. Surely, these ladies, these lovely letter writers, deserve more. It’s interesting, it was an interesting time, populated by interesting characters with wildly interesting approach to romance. Swinging 60s seems had nothing on the swinging 20s, but do we really get to know anyone? Much like Virginia wonders after Vita and her had finally consummated their passion, do we know someone more after an intimate experience? This movie certainly tried, really tried, to be that intimate experience for its audience. But unlike the letters simmering with restrained passion, this movie doesn't quite hit those notes.
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