Why did it take so long for me to get around to seeing this film? I was remiss in this regard. This film is brilliant - from the acting, to the direction, to the cinemetography, to even the hair & make-up, this film sings a morbid song of moral turpitude & psychological torture that can never be re-created or duplicated (at least not with this script). The performances are stunning - Taylor is ugly both inward & outward, Burton is intellectual & therefore more dangerous, Segal is youthful and strong but more easily used because of it, and Dennis is sweet and naive with a great pain inside her that represents the lost dreams and hopes of all of them. The direction is wonderful, even if the re-setting of half of the film is not true to the original play. In a way, it does add to the manicness of the story when the battle leaves the parlour to go to the lawn or the roadhouse and then returns painfully to the house, but we almost suffer too much when we re-enter that confining space & that is true to the text so I can't kvetch about that. The choice of shooting the backs of heads during some scenes is wonderful & real, giving it a cinema verite quality that I was surprised to see. And the editing is so good that I would almost believe that there were four or five cameras rolling simultaneously, the actors did the whole thing through top to bottom, and the editor had to just switch back & forth as the film went on. This speaks to the actors' talents, but the editor can make it jerky & disjointed so that you notice his work - it takes a master to hide his talent. The entire production team was making the same movie every step of the way. You owe it to yourself to see this, if only to learn how a drama can be done to great success. A good story (albeit sad) well told (even though it may leave you feeling tired).
Review of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
