Carrington (1995) User Reviews

Art for art's sake

[kwft620-radio · 8/10 · 1 May 2005]

A movie that asks the question, how did it ever get made? Absolutely not a chance that it was made for profit. Once I stopped asking the question, I could enjoy the superior cinematic quality of all the elements that elevate a film to a work of art. I suppose it must have been exhibited in a theater, somewhere, though getting it booked must have been quite an accomplishment for its backers. I caught it on cable which allowed me to sip on a brandy while the film took its time unfolding in a style that I would describe as a splendidly animated coffee table book.

I am moved to comment on Carrington to express my gratitude to its makers.

Fine acting

[perfectbond · 7/10 · 26 April 2004]

I really appreciated the performances in Carrington. I recognized Jonathan Pryce (Tomorrow Never Dies) and Emma Thompson (Much Ado About Nothing) of course but the rest of the cast was largely unknown to me. My conservative Christian outlook has instilled in me an instinctive apprehension for homosexuals though I sympathize with the fact that it must be difficult for such individuals to live in a world that is oriented towards straight people. But that aside the story was quite moving. The devotion of Ms. Thompson's character for Carrington is quite touching despite the fact that the relationship isn't all she can hope for. I don't know how much of the film is historical fact and how much is artistic license but it was overall quite worthwhile. Recommended for mature audiences. 7/10.

More to her than that

[JamesHitchcock · 6/10 · 21 October 2014]

No, this is not a biopic of Margaret Thatcher's Foreign Secretary who resigned over the Falklands War. Dora Carrington (1893–1932) was an English painter who was associated with the Bloomsbury Group, a group of British artists, writers and intellectuals who took their name from the district of North London in which many of them lived. Many of the Bloomsburies were believers in "free love", and they were known for their complex sex lives which have provided fertile material for biographers ever since. Carrington (she preferred to be known simply by her surname) was no exception; in fact the real Carrington had an even more complicated sex life than the character portrayed in this film. Here she is shown as exclusively heterosexual, whereas in reality she was bisexual and had affairs with both men and women. The men in her life depicted here are her fellow-artist Mark Gertler, her husband Ralph Partridge, the writer Gerald Brenan and her great love, the author and critic Lytton Strachey.

It seems odd to say that Strachey was the great love of Carrington's life because he was famously homosexual. She, however, became obsessed with him, and the two began an unusual relationship. It was never consummated in a physical sense, although they slept together in the same bed, but their friendship continued until the end of Strachey's life, throughout Carrington's marriage to Partridge and her affairs with other men. Not long after he died, the grief-stricken Carrington committed suicide. The relationship was further complicated by the fact that Strachey was himself sexually attracted to some of Carrington's other lovers, especially Partridge. (The question of whether Strachey and Partridge actually had a physical relationship is discreetly left unanswered in the film).

The film's main strength is the quality of the acting, especially from Emma Thompson in the title role and Jonathan Pryce (hidden behind a beard like a quickset hedge) as Strachey. As played by Pryce, Strachey comes across as conceited and self-obsessed, yet also capable of dignity and sincerity, especially when, as a conscientious objector during the Great War, he has to defend his pacifist position before a conscription board. He fails to return Carrington's selfless devotion, but we are always aware that, because of his sexuality, this is not something for which he can be blamed. Despite her tangled love-life, Carrington comes across as surprisingly naive and innocent. She was only in her early twenties when she first met Strachey, whereas Thompson was in her mid- thirties at the time the film was made, yet we are never conscious of watching an older woman playing a younger one.

Another good feature is the visual appearance of the film, with some attractive photography of the English countryside in the outdoor scenes. The indoor ones are rather lighter and airier than is normal in British "heritage cinema", owing to the distinctive Bloomsbury ethic, based around pastel colours and simplicity at a time when interior design in Britain was generally marked by strong colours and elaborate decoration.

The film, written and directed by Christopher Hampton, focuses mainly on Carrington's sexual and romantic relationships. The film is divided into six chapters, and it is significant that all but one of these feature a man's name in the title; none of these titles makes any reference to her art. Although the film helped to revive interest in Carrington, previously somewhat neglected, as an artist, little of her art is featured here. Perhaps the reason is that the Bloomsbury Group, generally progressive in other matters, were rather conservative when it came to the visual arts; like Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, Carrington was more influenced by the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists of a previous generation than by her Modernist contemporaries. The one picture that does play an important role is Gertler's "Merry-Go-Round", an allegory of the First World War and far more daringly radical than anything Carrington ever produced.

Yet Carrington was clearly a talented artist, and I would have preferred it if the film had explored this aspect of her life in greater depth, particularly as I am one of those who believe that the study of lesser- known artists can be as rewarding as that of the officially recognised Big Names. This is especially true of the twentieth century, the artistic history of which has far too often been portrayed as a steady progression towards the inevitable triumph of abstract over figurative art. The contribution of those like Carrington who stood for a quite different set of artistic values has tended to be neglected. There was more to her than simply being the female participant in a rather unusual (even by Bloomsbury standards) love affair. 6/10

art and fluid sexuality

[didi-5 · 4 September 2003]

"Carrington" has Christopher Hampton's great stamp on it and the fine performances of Emma Thompson (as the lead, artist Dora Carrington), and Jonathan Pryce (hilarious as Lytton Strachey). Also in the cast are Sam West, Jeremy Northam, Steven Waddington and Rufus Sewell, all entangled in some way with Carrington and all the time the love of her life is the one man she can't fully have.

Her story is a tragic one and extremely moving, with a lot of twists and turns along the way. Lots of sections are explicit while others are brilliantly understated, particular concerning Carrington and Strachey together. Light relief is provided with scenes including the conscientious objector hearing. We also get an insight into what makes Carrington tick as an artist, what inspires her and makes her grow.

My favourite scene of all though is Carrington, alone in a garden watching all the lovers in the house switching off the lights in their rooms until she sits in darkness.

A movie that never gets beyond its "pitch"

[stills-6 · 7/10 · 14 August 1999]

The superficial story is intriguing only if we are able know what the characters are thinking. Unfortunately, the basic plot line isn't expanded upon to create depth and interest. Some of the scenes are far too short - an intentional effect, I'm sure, but at the expense of the story. Things happen and we never understand why, and we are never made to care why either.

I usually don't mind the kind of movie that this one tries to be - a character study with dubious and sometimes incomprehensible motivations. But this movie never made the story compelling enough to justify its own vagueness.

intelligent and overlong

[cherold · 6/10 · 28 January 2004]

A half hour trimming would help this movie, which is generally interesting but tends to drag, especially towards the end when I began to actively wish it would just finally end already. I liked most of it, the characters are interesting and their odd interconnected relationships are rather amusing, but I was really rather disappointed by the time it was all over. Probably worth watching, overall.

Brilliant Drama, about love and suffering

[pendrell-2 · 10/10 · 31 December 1999]

This is possibly the best character study made in their last ten years. Taken from a biography of Lytton. This tells an emotionally complete tale of Dora Carrington and her love for Lytton. There is great drama here right from the start. Lytton is a homosexual writer who fancys young men. Dora is a painter who does not want to sleep with her "friend", because she believes its just for the physical (Which the film later shows to be true). Initially Dora is put off by Lytton (as is the viewer) but later as she says to him, She is burdened by one of the most self abasing loves for him. He also in turn loves her. But as he states they can do nothing about sleeping together. This is the contrast which is kept up throughout the whole film. All of Carringtons lovers physically love her body, and one of them even loves her (in a selfish way). But Lytton and Carrington love each other without sex, and their love is the strongest. As with the best Drama's, the character development never stops the whole way through. Each character is so well drawn and acted (Special credit must go to Emma Thompson and Jonathon Pryce, although the rest of the cast is also good) that you know how they are feeling even when it is not directly said or implemented. there is spoken and unspoken conflict in every scene. The two main characters are already in conflict while being in love. She loves him and he loves her but he is only attracted by men. Great drama manages to have conflict in every scene, and this one does. Great music from Micheal Nyman manages to capture the sentiments of this film especially well. So many more things could be said about the excellent narrative structure and lovely cinematography. But to be safe I will simply keep with my opening line. See Carrington. It does not pander to the audiences or ever become exploitational. It is a rare movie where the climax to the film is so fitting that you really can feel the emotion involved in these final frames. This is a film not to be missed.

Libertines of the past

[smatysia · 6/10 · 1 July 2002]

A story about a collection of early 20th century sluts, perverts, deviants, and assorted libertines. And I thought such behavior (or at least the public airing of it) was a more modern phenomenon. I had never heard of Dora Carrington or Lytton Strachey, and actually, I thought the movie wasn't bad. Emma Thompson is always magnificent, and although this wasn't her best work, she is always worth watching. Jonathan Pryce was only marginally believable in the beard, but at least he wasn't hawking unseen cars. This film is worth seeing if it comes on cable, but I wouldn't recommend spending any money. Grade: C

"How do you spell ‘intangible'?"

[Malcs · 10/10 · 22 March 2000]

"How do you spell ‘intangible'?" Dora Carrington asks of Lytton Strachey midway through this film as she sits writing at her desk. How do you spell intangible, indeed. Carrington tells the story of people who tried, in their own way, and at a time when society did not encourage such experiments, to acknowledge openly what most of us are aware of but still reluctant to discuss: that a great many differences exist between love and desire.

Carrington is one of the great epic romances, but a romance where sexual congress between the two who are passionately in love with each other has nothing whatever to do with the deep wells of feeling they share with each ther. Like The Unbearable Lightness Of Being and Out of Africa, Carrington is a film that dares to examine the difference between desire and love, and looks at an adult subject in an adult way. As opposed to Hollywood's usual matter-of-fact insistence that love is a game with a win/lose dialectic simplistically painted in broad stokes, Carrington traces, rather, the fact that love is indeed a mystery which must be acknowledged and honored for the way that it can bring out the best in both people rather than a way of keeping emotional score.

Emma Thompson is able to bring out the awkward, self-effacing aspects of Dora Carrington all the way down to the pigeon-toed stance the way the real life Carrington apparently stood. With all the impatience of a little girl who wishes that one day she'll wake up and finally find herself to be a sophisticated woman, she worships Lytton for his "cold and wise" attitude, his ability to see straight through the conventions of the time, and adopts him as her emotional mentor.

She's an artist whom everyone in the Bloomsbury set knew, even though she never really considered herself a part of the circle, unlike Lytton, whom everyone swarmed around for his scorched earth policy of anti-Victorian insights and rapier wit. Carrington, it would appear, spent her whole life trying to figure herself out, like any true artist, and Thompson very ably transmits that lost quality throughout the film: even as she gains her confidence socially, sexually and artistically, the motivations of her heart she would never let be pressured, no matter how much physical affection and attention she needed. Which I think is an important distinction to make.

A virgin many years past the point of reason, it is as if Carrington bought in to the sexual revolution of the flapper era between the world wars and the way it tried to repeal the oppressiveness of Victorian morals, learning how to cultivate and appreciate the sensual needs of the body, but deep down realized that a healthy, vigorous sex life with a plethora of partners does not necessarily mean more love, but simply more sex. As Carrington points out in the film, with Lytton she was able to be herself in all her confusion and joy, and without the obligatory pressures of regular sexual performance was able to find in Lytton the only person she ever really felt emotionally comfortable with. Echoing that great line of TS Eliot's in Four Quartets, of a "love beyond desire."

Jonathan Pryce, as Lytton Strachey, has the honor of portraying one of the best screen roles of all-time. Like Rex Harrison's Henry Higgins, or Liza Minnelli's Sally Bowles, his performance as Lytton is so fully realized that his character becomes unprecedented. Incorporating the attitude of, say, a bearded Oscar Wilde, Pryce's Lytton takes no prisoners and is disgusted by what he sees around him: the behaviour of the upper classes he finds himself eventually skirting is embarrassingly inexcusable to his ethically conscientious grounding. English boys are dying, he scowls, for their right to shamelessly frolic on the lawns of garden parties.

When Lytton moves in with Carrington they both want commitment (with a small c), but also personal freedom. This ambiguity toward each other is parallel to their ambiguity toward the concept of fame, which they both courted in a very teasing way, but soon grew to realize that there is a lot more to be said for secure domesticity (no matter how loosely defined) than their behaviorally adventurous artistic peers. Because Carrington is intelligently written, directed, and acted, however, we do not see the behavior of each of them as simply willful and spoiled, but as part of the contradictions they need to stay individuals in a culture, and at a time, where the conventional notions of love and sex were strictly regimented.

Jonathan Pryce plays Lytton with a sort of detachment that is supposed to come from the character's distaste for commitment.

What's most surprising about this epic romance is that given the amount of territory it traverses (seventeen years) at an almost leisurely pace, it clocks in at only a hair over two hours, but when those two hours are over, you certainly feel as if you've been somewhere, seen something, been privy to so many more truths and realizations than you'll see in any other standard film about a romance. What we have here is a paradox: an old-fashioned story about an avant-garde arrangement. An intelligent, thoughtful love story, told with enough care and attention that we really get involved in the passions between the characters, not the algebra surrounding them.

A Film Ahead of Its Time

[Sylviastel · 7/10 · 15 April 2023]

Dame Emma Thompson played Dora Carrington, a woman in a man's world. She is based on a real person who lived. Whether it's accurate, I don't know. Dora prefers being called Carrington rather than Dora. She is taken with homosexual writer Lytton Strachey played by Sir Jonathan Pryce. They're an odd pairing. Despite the obstacles, they seemed to be drawn together over their long term relationship. They both love each other despite society's expectations. Strachey comes into young Dora's life. They both have lovers of their own and even a husband too. Lytton and Carrington seem to belong together despite what we expect them too. The film does move slow at times though. It has a sterling supportive cast.

Strachey

[ferdinand1932 · 2/10 · 20 October 2012]

This film is really about Lytton Strachey. His actions, thoughts and how he is the center of Carrington's life. The wrong target as biography is the least of this film's problems.

It's a manipulative fraud in the depiction of Carrington as doting, caring, and, at the film's end, a tragic sort of lover. She was far from that as just two pages reveals in Leon Edel's book, "Bloomsbury A House of Lions" where he analyzes the Carrington/Strachey relationship using the same material that was the basis for this film.

To say she was a confused and emotionally odd collection of forces is an understatement. There was a controlling and deceptive quality to Carrington's personality that made her very unpleasant. That is not the sort of character who is nice for a movie but the truth of it is that Carrington was not nice and this film continues to present her in a way that is not honest.

Unfortunately mainstream movies cannot show the horrible faults of those that it elevates to biography status.

The film as a production is very good and Jonathan Pryce as Strachey holds the work together. Carrington is an enigma because all the bad parts of her real self are removed.

Love in its many forms

[josiegrrl · 10/10 · 19 December 1999]

When love comes, it doesn't always come in a form that allows its fullfillment, as Dora Carrington knows. Her lifelong love of Lytton, a man for whom romantic love only knows a male face, is both a source of great anguish and great joy. Emma Thompson portrays Dora with great sensitivity, depicting her other loves and lovers as genuine yet never enough to supplant her love of Lytton. In our society the love of "one and only" can be an oppressive ideal that few can attain, and Hollywood is its loudest proponent. This movie allows for a well thought out exploration on of the many other faces of true love. Superb acting, direction, editing, costuming, the works. I highly recommend it.

La Ronde on the fringes of Bloomsbury

[jillmillenniumgirllevin · 6/10 · 16 February 2017]

La Ronde on the fringes of Bloomsbury

"Carrington" is a sub-Bloomsbury version of La Ronde: X desires Y and sleeps with Z, A wants B, but sleeps with C, and so on and so on. This game of musical beds should carry the film, especially given Jonathan Pryce's uncanny impersonation of Lytton Strachey and Emma Thompson's persuasive Carrington. Add a script and cinematography to fulfill the nostalgia quotient, and le voila: life is lived and art is made en plein air and during an eternal summer; winter seems never seems to intrude, and the "staff" keep discreetly in the kitchen and the basement where they belong. All these Good Things should carry the movie. Alas, they do not. As in all biopics, the writing plays fast and loose with the truth. But was it absolutely necessary to insert two of the most famous Lyttonisms: his account of proposing to Virginia Woolf ('ghastly"), and his declaration that he would try to "come between" his sister and a potential rapist? In this tiny circle, desire balked and desire gratified seem almost incestuous.. And the lack of a coherent narrative leaves us puzzled. For example, Lytton's sudden gift of "a motorcar" to Ralph Partridge is unprepared for and opaque. Is he wooing Partridge? Using Partridge as a pander? Demonstrating uncomplicated generosity? The film's failure to answer questions like these saps its interest. "Carrington"isn't dull, exactly; rather, it's beautiful, nostalgic, and inert.

A drift

[hcoursen · 5/10 · 6 February 2010]

This one needed tightening and focus. It drifts aimlessly in imitation of the non-sexual affair between Carrington and Strachey, but the art form is an imitation of an action, not a replication of mere aimlessness. That the characters are inherited from history and from a book about the Bloomsbury circle does not absolve the film, a separate work, from establishing the characters and their motives. Yet here we have the Rufus Sewell character charging around madly for no established reason, other than that he can't get into Dora's knickers. And his brief reappearance almost at the end is inexplicable. Carrington's lovers come and go -- obviously surrogates for her inability to consummate anything with Strachey. But those lovers have no frame or context or reason for being taken on by Carrington other than that old ennui. Her own character, then -- in spite of wonderful Emma -- gets lost in the slow motion meaninglessness of her life. She does depict the layering of the Bohemian that took the place of the stiff corseting of the rest of the ladies of the time. The beautiful moorlands of Yorkshire are just that -- a travelogue. They are not integral as, say, the world of Tess or Eustacia in Hardy. In spite of what other posters say, direction here is a major flaw.

Delicately portrayed amorous eccentricity as only the British can do

[Tabarnouche · 24 November 2002]

If you require the overdone loudness, violence and aggressivity of an American film (Training Day comes to mind), you'll need to take an extra dose of Ritalin to get through this film. (That advice could have been useful to a few of the previous reviewers, in fact.)

For those who don't have to be hit over the head, though, this film is a riveting masterpiece about the varied forms human love can assume--and a reminder that subcultures, like the Bloomsbury Group, have always given social norms a wide berth. British society has long tolerated eccentricity, especially when discreetly indulged, of which the nuanced contours of relationships among the literate in early-20th-century Britain provide an excellent illustration. Combine this refreshing glimpse of consensual mores with outstanding interpretations by Thompson and Pryce, and with fidelity to historical fact, and you've got two delightful hours of first-rate cinema on your hands.

And not an exploding car or a vengeance-driven, gadget-laden military operation against a demonized third-world country anywhere to be found. Amazing. And bravo. 9 out of 10.

Carrington - brief

[user-142-632625 · 7/10 · 29 November 2014]

Biopic of Edwardian painter Carrington and her platonic relationship with author Lytton Strachey. Set mostly in pastoral England, during the Great War and afterward. Strachey and Carrington entice and embrace various male companions, seemingly to vent their own frustrated passions. Unlike almost every "creative artist" film I have ever watched, the angst and toil not shown at all. Emma Thompson, as Dora Carrington, is quite good in this. Also, during the first half of the film, she manages the trick of resembling a twenty year old. Sense And Sensibility was released the same year; while she portrayed another twenty year old, there she looked like a matronly forty year old. Jonathan Pryce as Strachey is brilliant.

Carrying On

[NoDakTatum · 7/10 · 24 November 2023]

A young female artist falls in love with a known homosexual and the two spend their remaining years in each other's lives. No, this is not a romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts, but "Carrington" is an emotional drama that is a triumph for Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce, and less than perfect for writer/director Christopher Hampton. The film is good. It takes place in the years 1914-1932 in England. Thompson is Dora Carrington, a troubled artist who falls for homosexual writer Lytton Strachey, played by Pryce. Strachey is a bit of a dramatic, suffering from "old age" and other infirmities, although he would be considered a young man. Strachey is first attracted to Carrington, thinking she is a young man thanks to her pageboy haircut and lack of makeup. The two fall in love the only way they can: unphysically. They share a bed, but have no real sexual relationship and pursue the kind of physical love they cannot find with each other. Virgin Carrington falls for an angry artist who cannot understand their four year relationship with no sex. She is not attracted to his body, but gives in, finding she does not enjoy sex. She breaks up with him, using her impending cohabitation with Strachey as a reason. She then brings home uptight army soldier Ralph (Steven Waddington). He is a man's man who does not understand all these artists and conscientious World War I objectors, but beds Carrington and, the film implies, Strachey. Ralph and Carrington marry and Ralph brings home friend Gerald for Strachey to "get to know." Gerald then suddenly falls in love with Carrington. The two have an affair. Strachey finds and loves a younger man named Roger, and Carrington dumps Gerald, later finding a guy with a boat who really likes his sex on the high seas. Ironically, he is not sexually attracted to Carrington, the very reason she broke up with the angry young artist. Strachey and Carrington end up back together in their strange living arrangement, and both meet their sad fates.

Thompson and Pryce are so good here it hurts. The main problem I had was with Hampton's choice of subject matter. He based the film on a book about Strachey, titled the film after Carrington, and I kept noticing a real lack of focus as to the film's main character. Hampton also writes Strachey like he is a poor man's Oscar Wilde, coming up with pithy sayings in between heartbreaks. Carrington comes across as flighty and confused, but we do not see how disturbed she is until after Strachey's death, and Hampton could have elaborated on that a little more. More scenes about Carrington and Strachey's work might have helped as well. The two hour movie feels like compressed images from a long running soap opera. Why should the viewer care so much about these characters? Hampton the director is wonderful. In one scene, Carrington sits on a stump and, through a giant bank of windows, watches her husband and his live-in mistress, Carrington's own new lover, and Strachey and Roger, all getting ready for bed. Hampton keeps the scene sad without becoming voyeuristic, as Carrington seems to be silently questioning all these men who have brought her to this place in time. Carrington's death is also handled tactfully. I would recommend "Carrington," but with the reservations about the script. I definitely would recommend it on the performances alone, if nothing else.

High class and high quality.

[Hermit C-2 · 9/10 · 1 September 1999]

Emma Thompson in a period piece--I would bet that's a pretty good movie, and 'Carrington' did not disappoint me. It concerns the unusual relationship of writer Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce) and painter Dora Carrington (Thompson) in their insular world of upper-class friends and other artists in England between the Great Wars. When we first meet Strachey he's a fastidious homosexual of thirty-six going on seventy-six. He mistakes Carrington, with her bobbed hair and masculine clothes, for a boy. Despite this inauspicious beginning, they soon find themselves fascinated with each other, then the fascination turns to love. Their non-sexual relationship endures in spite of her marriage, their other lovers and their lover's lovers. As the years go by, a flow chart might help out the viewer trying to remember who's who.

As you might surmise, this film is not for everyone. There are some who will dismiss the whole group as "immoral" or as an effete corps of impudent snobs, but we won't be that narrow- minded and judgemental, will we? If you allow yourself into 'Carrington's' world I think you'll find it rewarding. It's full of good actors but I believe its success is largely due to director Christopher Hampton's screenplay. It's a full two hour movie without the benefit of car chases, explosions or kickboxing matches, so it's a big plus to have something nice to look at for all that time. We can thank cinematographer Denis Lenoir and production designer Caroline Ames for that.

The bafflement of love

[burgan6203 · 10/10 · 15 March 2006]

One thing regarding Christopher Hampton's film "Carrington" that bears noting for potential viewers is that previous knowledge is helpful. If you don't have any sort of idea who Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey are, or the avant-garde world in which they moved, then the movie will seem very obscure and disjointed.

Regarding the movie, it is odd and melancholic, but richly intelligent and rewarding, particularly with repeated viewings.The cinematography is attractive without being showy. Michael Nyman's score is haunting and uniquely beautiful.And the casting is perfect, particularly Jonathan Pryce as the ironic Bloomsbury butterfly Strachey, and Emma Thompson as the strangely alluring Carrington, who's heart beats fiercely with love for him, despite the fact that neither of them will ever be able to do anything about it.

My personal favorite scene is when they are sitting under the tree, and Carrington tells Lytton how she feels, and he understands.They are both so peaceful and content.

Them so sad, me sad too

[galensaysyes · 3/10 · 26 October 2007]

This is a film for emos--middle-aged, malelike emos, with their brains stuffed full of cotton like a Quay brothers puppet. 'tis ever so dainty and genteel, to be sure; ever trembling at the verge; but the verge is one of farce, not tragedy.

The subjects are a pair of silly-ass Edwardians--one of them Lytton Strachey--who couldn't...I mean to say, they couldn't possibly...could they?...but they do. At one point the woman sets about cutting off the man's big, bushy, Edward Lear beard, just to serve him right, but as the first snicker is about to be sneed, her hand is stayed by the onset of adoration. As they lounging in a meadow together, she confides that she would jolly well like him to kiss her, whereupon he, much struck by the novelty of the idea, exclaims, "D'ye know, I think I should like to!"

The material cries out for an Alan Ayckbourn to exploit its absurdity, but here is instead is treated with the greatest doe-eyed tremulousness, eggshell-walking, and tea-party delicacy. It's like a trail left by an animal with the minutest frame of reference possible.

That animal is probably a snail. Scene after scene inches its way along to a tiny little line of dialogue, of the d'ye-know-I-have-a-notion variety, which promises to set the drama going. Then the scene fades out and that's it, that little line was all it was building to: nothing comes of nothing. Ms. Thompson whines and mopes her way through her part in her patented way, which has much in common with Monty Python's invisible man. Seldom does the film, in its great daintiness, allow her or Mr. Pryce or anyone else to suggest any genuine interaction that was ever had between any genuine people.

Except for the actors, I can't imagine any reason why anyone would want to go to see this. My reason was that I was catching up on the film work of Penelope Wilton, who plays Strachey's mother. Allowed half a chance, she and the character could have given the film a good boot in the arse, which it deserved, and would have profited by; but all they had a chance for was a little pinch on the arm. More than that would have disturbed the doilies.

What price, love?

[fred-houpt · 10/10 · 18 June 2007]

I had no previous knowledge of Dora Carrington before I found this film. I had learned about the Bloomsbury artists so many years ago I had forgotten their place in history. To say that this story is odd is a gentle understatement. Carrington was someone you would more likely place in the hippie era of the 1960's rather than England of pre World War One. On the other hand, the bohemian artists in Europe had the luxury of acting out some pretty odd relationships; they had fine examples of large living in the previous century - think Lord Byron and a bit later Oscar Wilde and you'll understand.

I ended up so smitten by this film that I bought a bio on Carrington and it was worth the effort because the film leaves out so much of what made up her psyche. I'd even argue that the film as good as it is can be confusing because we don't know why she is the woman she is. Carrington carried two distinct imbalanced relationships up to the moment she met Lytton Strachey. She loathed and hated her mother and adored and clung to her father. Electra complex, anyone? Leaving Freud aside (and there is a deep irony in this comment: Lytton's brother became a well known Freudian analyst) Carrington was unprepared for the rush of emotions that Strachey caused in her heart. As an openly gay, brilliant intellectual and important writer, he would have been the last on her list of attractive men. But, love deals odd darts to the heart. After nearly clipping his beard off in his sleep as a planned retribution to his impulsive kiss, she paused, stared down at his placid face and fell madly and deeply in "love". The rest of the movie completes their extremely odd relationship. The important fact is that she never lost any of the intense love for this gentle spirit. She accepted that Lyton was more interested in men, shared lovers with him, opened her heart to anything except separation from him. We can argue that she had transferred her father love to Strachey but of course it becomes a label that in the end will not satisfy the mystery of her heart.

There is much to be said about this film. Emma Thompson completely embodied Carrington as totally as an actor can. Aside her was Jonathan Pryce who portrayed Strachey so perfectly that it left those who knew Strachey amazed. The ambiance and rapport between the main actors kept the passion of their evolving love always front and center. We get glimpses of Carrington's torment over Strachey but we never really know the ultimate motivations. What is so overwhelming about this film is that when Lyton finally succumbs the heart break to Carrington was too much for her to carry. It removed her will to live without him to love. I have rarely been so moved by a love affair like this. The music by Michael Nyman is so perfectly evocative of the waves of Carrington's love that the soundtrack seems completely meshed with the story. In the end, watching Carrington make her final choice we are as devastated as she was at her loss of Strachey. As a love story it is intense, very complicated and twisted, as a relationship between man and woman it is as odd as they come. In the end we decide that love at this level is a connection of heart and emotion and commitment that is blind to shape and form and opinions of others. It is a link that is mysterious but tangible. One can only weep in acknowledgment that if we had loved someone that deeply we too would have wanted the escape she chose. An astoundingly profound meditation on love. Phenomenal supporting actors. Superb but heart rending.

Pretentious & Overwrought

[ddlacree-991-615259 · 1/10 · 2 March 2011]

What makes this tale pathetic and even horrifying is that it is true. If the characters central to this saga truly lived their lives in such wretched repression, compulsion, pretension, evasion, subterfuge, denial, longing, jealousy, confusion, suppression, depression, altruism, platonic hypocrisy and lack of courage - then God help them! If their entrapment was a reflection of the age they lived in, then they acquiesced to societal norms and were not the creative, artistic free spirits they pretended or aspired to be. If their ennui was a result of their own inability to live in truth, then their pose was a pretense. There is nothing to admire in this story. Carrington was a coward, Lytton a poseur, and their circle a bunch on namby pamby weaklings. To suicide for a love that never satisfied is the ultimate statement of low self-esteem.

If you are a depressive, you may enjoy this movie. Those who live in joy may do better to skip it. Not just skip it, but run, screaming, very fast, in the opposite direction.

Look to find the Bloomsbury Passion

[tedg · 14 June 2000]

Viewer, do not believe others when they say this is a Merchant and Ivory knockoff. It has many of the same elements, to be sure, but M-I serves up confections, and here is something more interesting.

Imagine an intelligent screenwriter's first choice: whose story is this and what form must the telling take as a result? This is Carrington's story. She was an introspective painter who never exhibited -- thus we have a meditative, rather longish development. But you'll note that this is not just to revel in any lushness. What's done here is that each scene is a sequence of many small shots, each exquisitely framed, but shown less long than one can absorb. This is how Carrington would see the narrative, and it is a rather clever approach to centering it in her eye, if you can center down and read the pictures.

You also see her bias in many of the decisions related to the mechanics of the plot: her appearance changes little in 17 years; her affairs are always seen, but those of Lytton are not; and we are denied fascinating details (her father's death, the famous gatherings of the intelligently eccentric Bloomsbury Group) that she would have considered unimportant.

As the presentation is visual, Emma Thompson must dramatize physically, and so she does. Some of her character's most awkward moments have Emma in almost caricatured postures, much as one imagines one's self in retrospect as clumsy.

The test of a film is whether it transports you to an unfamiliar place and embeds a strange experience that sticks. The emotional and sexual situation here is bizarre and unfamiliar, but if you just take it as a pretty, competent film with a story, it won't work. If you take is as a film about her world, from her world, there's an additional rewarding dimension.

But go relaxed. The theme here is the existential angst between the fact you can passionately love someone and know that you will NEVER be able to provide some key factor they need, something basic in their life. An unsettling reminder.

A Buried Treasure That Depicts a Refreshingly Unconventional Relationship

[jzappa · 10/10 · 7 October 2008]

The same day I watched this, I watched Prick Up Your Ears right before it. Not only are they both period biopics set in England, but they have a profound chronicle of love in common. Having watched both movies consecutively, it brings me to meditate on the lives and perspectives of creative people. There is a refreshing, Rilke-esquire way of thinking that they follow in their lives. What if everyone followed their heart, and nothing but?

Carrington is a buried treasure that depicts the relationship between painter Dora Carrington and author Lytton Strachey in WWI England, a beautiful existence of cottages and countryside. Even if platonic because of Strachey's homosexuality, the relationship was all the same a profound and complex one. When Carrington did form a more physically intimate relationship with a soldier, Strachey made do accepting him as a friend, while the soldier stayed rather edgy, not so much with Strachey's sexual orientation as with the reality that he was a conscientious objector. Yes, there is inescapable trouble linked to the bond between Carrington and Strachey. Yes, there is more pain and guilt than there are good times. But what if they had buckled to social expectations, convention, tradition? What if they didn't follow their hearts? By the end of the film, one realizes that the true heartbreak is caused by how much they wound up guarding their feelings in spite of following them, and in spite of the nature of their incompatible sexualities.

You could never find a better fit to play Dora Carrington. Emma Thompson is perfectly cast, wise and set aside and completely natural. She is natural in the way she looks and natural in the way she carries herself. When we first see her, when Strachey is first introduced to her, we misinterpret the first impression of her, a quiet, reticent tomboy. Carrington, like Thompson, is beautiful but maintains selfhood over everything else. Thompson understands that that is why Carrington refuses her body to her lover early in the film. She never quite seems to grow comfortable with sex no matter her progression in that inevitable field of her life. She in some sense is like a child in spite of her intellectual prowess and her disregard for recognition of her work as a painter. Her impatience for complicated situations causes her to ride roughshod over the feelings of those to whom she finds herself to be closest, and when she finds that in her penchant for the immediate, she learns the harsh truth that she has not been embracing her greatest moments.

Her primordial flaws come at the expense of Strachey, played by Jonathan Pryce, who seems to love the breezy theatricality of the role, a clear eccentric from his first moment, who gives the impression of being completely aloof and prissily high-maintenance. He seems not to take anything seriously, even his unwavering position as neutral in the issue of the war. He is one of those odd and nonchalantly insubordinate older men that make spectators laugh, but part of him quietly enjoys being a source of entertainment. Part of him is terribly troubled by his only minimal success as a writer. Somewhat like Carrington, he still seeks sometime companions more conducive to his most rudimentary needs, and in one instance, we see him laid bare, very unlike his cold and elitist temperament. In this moment, he and Carrington realize that no matter how often they fluctuate on each other's terms, they are each other's shoulders to cry on, and as they have felt as awkward as they've ever let themselves become around anyone else, they feel, whether consciously or not, that they can be completely themselves in each other's company.

Their leisurely lifestyle becomes intensely infectious, as is the atmosphere, which is not only wonderful because of the English countryside but because there is an indescribable feel to the contrast of the cinematography, which is not grainy nor is it clear and bright. Maybe it pertains to the same disregard for orthodoxy as Carrington and Strachey. Maybe it is that it doesn't conform to the expectation that historical England be depicted with lushness, nor does it conform to the precondition that a story full of sorrow be depicted with gloom.

Michael Nyman's moving and wonderful music score has a similar effect as Howard Shore's music in a David Cronenberg film, a suitably blending pulse of the hearts and lives of the story yet haunting and emotional. Had the film gone without Nyman's music, it might not have had the moving power behind its unaffectedly real and wise, not to mention true, story, and we might not have loved its two central characters. And maybe we love them for similar reasons why they love each other.

A strange love affair among the famous.

[Clarissa-5 · 9/10 · 29 August 1999]

It is difficult for the average person to appreciate what is going on in this film. Nora Carrington, a painter, loved Lytton Stachey, the famous essayist, with complete devotion. But, because of his homosexuality, he could return only a spiritual love. Though he wanted to marry her, he never did, apparently to leave her free to find a normal life with another man. And while she did marry, her love for Stachey overrided any affection she had for her husband or any of her other lovers.

It must be very difficult for most people to understand the love relationship between these two people. Only those who have encountered or experienced a similar love could understand it.

I found this film very rewarding. My main criticism is the choppy editing which abruptly flits from one scene or even one location to the next. The acting of Emma Thomson and Jonathan Pryce is quite good. Pryce's role particularly is a departure from his usual work. I had trouble recognizing him because of the makeup.

The film has tweaked my interest in pursuing more of this real-life story.