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Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki struggle to bring a love story to life in Vita and Virginia |
Where did it all go so wrong? The film expands the plays
concept (two actors performing the various letters between the two lovers) into
a series of conversations and throws in as characters the other members of the
Bloomsbury circle. Sadly, what it fails to do is convey a sense of joi
d’vive to any of this. The Bloomsbury crowd not only come across as pompous
bores, but they never even really seem to be enjoying themselves. They
certainly find it hard to get passionately worked up about any of these
marvellous artistic ideas we keep being told they are having. The only thing we
really see them talk about is sex, probably because it’s easier to put that on
screen than writing.
The failure of the film is increased by the sadly misjudged
performances by the two actors at its heart. It’s already a struggle to get any
sense of chemistry between these two – I can’t put my finger on why this is,
but there isn’t the undefinable ‘spark’ between them. Perhaps it’s partly
because they both choose such wildly diverse acting styles, that their scenes
never quite click together.
Debicki goes for a stately fragility, mixed with an emo
waviness and seems to be playing every scene as if she subconsciously stating
“my character committed suicide you know”. Arterton seems to try and compensate
for Debicki’s overstated lip wobbling, by going for a jolly hockey-sticks
brashness. Neither performance compliments the other and the effect is feeling
like two very good actresses feeling constrained in different ways by the
material.
It’s not helped by the flatness of much of the filming. I’ve
seen Chanya Button’s work elsewhere (notably on television with some great work
on WW2 drama World on Fire), but here she seems uncertain how to bring
visual interest to this story. Too many scenes are shot with a murky lack of
visual interest. Moments of letter reading are presented as the actors
addressing the camera. Stylistic flourishes – such as Virginia’s visions of
swiftly growing vines at moments of emotion – seem to come out of nowhere and
jar with much of the rest of the traditionalism of the rest of the filming.
So instead, two fascinating intellectuals end up coming
across as slightly self-absorbed bores in a relationship that never catches
fire. Most of the rest of the cast fail to make an impact: Rupert Penry-Jones
gets closest as Vita’s husband who oscillates between embracing their open
marriage and demanding a wife who will fulfil a more traditional role. But for
the rest, it’s hard to get any sense of their personalities with some performances
– especially Adam Gillen – tipping too far into gurning comedy.
The general lifelessness of the film is made somehow even
worse by the bizarrely left-field score. It’s a strikingly anachronistic slow-paced
drum-and-base inspired sound that wouldn’t seem out of place in the late hours
of a nightclub. Here it not only feels horrendously out of place – not least
because it’s the only anachronistic touch either in the film-making of the
performances, which are otherwise scrupulously correct – but it’s incessant
throbbing beat actually helps make the film even slower, as if you were
watching it in a slightly intoxicated haze.
Vita and Virginia should really have crackled with
the vibrancy of the real-life characters and the passion of their love for each
other and their shared ideas. Instead it’s a tedious bore that never sparks
into life.
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