The story of the love affair between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West finally hits the big screen. In February 2017, yes more than 2 years ago, we brought you the news that the story of the love affair between literary icon Virginia Woolf and socialite and popular author Vita Sackville-West was to be portrayed in a new movie.
Well, finally it’s here. The film simply entitled “Vita and Virginia” is released in the UK on the 5th July (30th August in the US). The film has all the usual tropes of the 1920s and the Bloomsbury Set, but is accompanied by a thumping electronic soundtrack by Isobel Waller-Bridge (sister of “Fleabag” Phoebe).
The casting has changed slightly from our original post. Vita is played by Gemma Arterton, Virginia by Elizabeth Debicki (Eva Green left the project due to scheduling conflicts), with Isabella Rossellini as Lady Sackville, Vita’s overbearing mother and Rupert Penry Jones as Harold Nicolson, Vita’s bisexual husband.
The story of how the pair met, and how Virginia persuades her husband Leonard that their publishing house, Hogarth, should publish Vita’s latest book, is told in part through a series of letters between the lovers, with both Vita and Virginia delivering their words as monologues straight to camera.
Director Chanya Button believes we can still learn from these 1920’s icons “These are two women who bent the institution of marriage to their will. They didn’t burn the house down — they made it work for them. They’re rebellious and revolutionary and very, very clever”.
Birmingham Poet, Benjamin Zephaniah dies, aged 65
Top Authors Join Legal Battle Against OpenAI for Mass Copyright Infringement
Literary Icon, Cormac McCarthy has died
The Literary World Mourns Martin Amis