Tina Gharavi's adaptation of Virginia Woolf's peculiar and tonally elusive novel takes flight with a dreamy, star-gazing twist. Written by Justine Waddell, this film centers on the quarterlife crisis of a headstrong, well-born young woman in Edwardian London, faced with the necessity of marriage. What emerges is a wayward, unworldly fantasia—a beautifully designed and photographed four-leaf clover of a film, flavored with wistful, unexpectedly Germanic romanticism.
A Creative Departure from the Novel
Waddell and Iranian-born director Gharavi have creatively gone against the grain of the novel, amplifying Woolf's single glancing reference to astronomy and making it the center of the heroine's yearning. This may playfully implant a subconscious memory of Cole Porter's lyrics to the song of the same title: 'You are the one, only you beneath the moon, under the sun...' The film also removes Woolf's supercilious condescension towards the self-betterment of newly educated lower and middle classes, instead focusing on a sweet-natured story performed with conviction by its all-star ensemble cast, interspersed with dreamlike set pieces. The result is not precisely Virginia Woolf's Night and Day; perhaps it is more E.M. Forster's or even Ronald Firbank's.
Ensemble Cast Shines
With spirit and charm, Haley Bennett plays headstrong young Katharine Hilbery, the only child of wealthy parents (Timothy Spall and Jennifer Saunders), who are burdened by the reputation of Katharine's late grandfather, an illustrious poet and critic. Katharine is a self-taught astronomer trying to gain admission to the University of Cambridge to read maths, battling academia's anti-women attitudes. With her queer pacifist cousin Cyril (Misia Butler), she larksomely dresses as a man to gatecrash a pompous male-only astronomical society, though she remains innocent about Cyril's private life.
Realizing her intellectual ambitions are only possible as a married woman, Katharine impulsively gets engaged to her clueless childhood friend William Rodney, amusingly played by Jack Whitehall. Rodney is a complete chump who writes insufferable essays about Elizabethan poetry. But at this moment, Katharine realizes she might have feelings for Ralph Denham (Elyas M'Barek), the young writer her mother has hired as personal secretary.
The film is a sweet, guilelessly eccentric story—a butterfly fluttering just beyond the wheel of realism. Virginia Woolf's Night and Day screened at SXSW London, is in UK and Irish cinemas from 19 June, and releases in the US later this year.
