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VITA AND VIRGINIA
***
Dir: Chanya Button (12A, 110 mins)
A period biography with modern flourishes, telling the tale of the love affair between writers Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf in the 1920s. Gemma Arterton convincingly assays Vita, flitting from maddening to flirtatious to endearing with aplomb; Elizabeth Debicki’s Woolf is less successful, skirting around the writer’s mental illness and not helped by a stagey script. Much of the film is made up of the letters the pair used to write to one another, delivered as direct address to camera and often sluggish – in marked contrast to an opening cinematic house party soundtracked by drum‘n’bass, with fantasy sequences illustrating how Woolf saw the world. If only director Button had managed more of these moments, the wordy script might have lost its inert sensibilities. Their relationship never really takes off, despite the best efforts of Arterton. The supporting cast, including Isabella Rossellini, are given little to contribute to the proceedings. The script, co-written by Button with actor Eileen Atkins, ends up weighed down by exposition in a noble if misfiring attempt to bring a ‘scandalous’ affair to life.
Opens July 5
words Keiron Self