The film, while based on Virginia Woolf, is really a story of three women, set in different periods of time, each trying to recognize, and find an identity beyond role.....understand and define herself as individual.
Virginia, (Nicole Kidman) in 1920 is writing her novel "Mrs. Dalloway", (a story of one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, who has what on the surface appears a well ordered life, and she realizes it to be a life built around meaningless trivialities)
Laura (Juliana Moore) is reading and identifying with the novel in 1950, and Clarissa (Meryl Streep) is actually living the role in New York of 2001.
Nicole Kidman gives a powerfully passive and controlled performance, nothing on the surface, hardly any dialogue, but the cauldron of seething emotions within clearly visible. Julian Moore does the same, underplaying her emotions, trying to hide her true feelings, while clearly getting suffocated by them. Meryl Streep, on the other hand, is more explicit and expressive in her emoting, likely as it represents the woman of today.
What's beautiful is how the three stories intertwine through three different time periods, bound together in experience and emotion.
An interesting point to note was that Nicole Kidman had a prosthetic nose for the movie, giving her an amazingly close resemblance to Virginia Woolf.
What's beautiful is how the three stories intertwine through three different time periods, bound together in experience and emotion.
An interesting point to note was that Nicole Kidman had a prosthetic nose for the movie, giving her an amazingly close resemblance to Virginia Woolf.
There is an inescapable strength in the women, and I guess an irony; each has a child in the house tuning into their emotions, while the adults around seem either unaware or incapable of understanding. Was an interesting and curious point.
It's a movie about choices, and the struggle that comes with making difficult choices in the search for fulfillment. Adding to the complexity of the usual, is each of their lives being touched by bisexuality and suicide.
Put together like that, it might sound like a depressing movie. It's not. Just the artistry, beauty and depth make it into near poetry.......an honest and incisive look at some complex facets of life.
That said, it's not an easy film to watch. I'd say watch if you're fine with it staying in your mind for a long while after the watching.
It's a movie about choices, and the struggle that comes with making difficult choices in the search for fulfillment. Adding to the complexity of the usual, is each of their lives being touched by bisexuality and suicide.
Put together like that, it might sound like a depressing movie. It's not. Just the artistry, beauty and depth make it into near poetry.......an honest and incisive look at some complex facets of life.
That said, it's not an easy film to watch. I'd say watch if you're fine with it staying in your mind for a long while after the watching.
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