PERIOD PIECES : A TOUCH OF NOSTALGIA - "MRS. DALLOWAY"

The novel Mrs. Dalloway written by Virginia Wolf, is no doubt known to all of you. Well, at least you must have heard of Virginia Wolf. I keep threatening to read one of her novels but somehow never seem to get round to it. Not for a lack of opportunity, my grandmother has a collection of almost all her novels in the house but it just somehow never happened. I thus thought that this British adaptation with rather a stunning cast starring Vanessa Redgrave and my own particular favorite Rupert Graves (to be fair he technically wouldn’t be called starring but he is one of the main attractions as far as I’m concerned!), would motivate me into reading them. I was deeply moved by the film, but somehow also felt it could be done better… Hang on, let me tell you the story I’ll then elaborate on what I mean…
Clarissa Dalloway (Vanessa Redgrave) has had a successful life on the whole. She comes from a good family, she has “married well” to a then up and coming and now current politician. She is a member of high society who is renowned for her parties and grace. On the day we meet her she is preparing for just such a famous party and reminiscing fondly of her stormy youth. She had been quite a beauty with a string of suitors but one of them stands out in her mind, John. She had almost married him once, but that would have entailed going off to India and starting a new life, no, Mrs. Dalloway is better off as Mrs. Dalloway. That is, until John actually turns up at the house to visit on that same day. In the meanwhile, a young soldier Septimus Warren Smith (Rupert Graves) back from the front after the First World War, is suffering terribly from “delayed shell shock”. His young Italian wife is desperate, and Septimus, although quite clear in his own mind as to what he’s thinking , is growing more and more incoherent to others. Mrs. Dalloway’s peripheral brush with him and his desperate efforts to reconnect to a world to which he no longer seems to belong will take her to places in her own soul that Clarissa Dalloway had been trying to forget existed for a very long time…
I have one major problem with this film and it is this. The whole story of Mrs. Dalloway is superbly portrayed and acted. It is, as you have guessed, a story of opting for a safe and cosseted life over a life of discovery, adventure and very possibly true love. I find it quite beautiful that the regrets have arrived later in life; Mrs. Dalloway is in her early fifties. Her emotions, choices of youth and sadness are wonderfully painted and cannot help but touch you. Then there is the story of Septimus Warren Smith. Now this one rests chiefly on the shoulders of Rupert Graves and I must say his portrayal of the shell-shocked young man shakes one to the roots of one’s boots. He desperately tries to explain how he feels and why he has left his previous therapist to his new doctor but his metaphors have become so roundabout and his mostly negative emotions are so ready to boil to the surface, the doctor simply glazes over as he listens and pays no heed at all to the contents of his rather long speech. Both stories are stunningly emotional, but the way they connect is… I mean, they hardly connect at all. Only barely. Mrs. Dalloway barely is conscious of Septimus and his story – she doesn’t even know his name – and yet the little she knows almost upturns her… I mean, one could argue that with the visit from John in the morning and all the reminiscing and wondering about her own life has made her emotional but still… I found it contrived. And I strongly suspect bits have been “cut out” for the sake of the length of the film – the problem is that I haven’t actually read the book. I felt the film was rather untidily sown together, almost as if one had to choose one of the two stories, didn’t have the heart to discard either, and sort of hacked bits out of both for the sake of fitting both in… But it is a wonderful film, full of beauty and deep thought, a combination that one rarely finds these days…