Mrs Dalloway (film)

Mrs Dalloway
Directed by	Marleen Gorris
Screenplay by	Eileen Atkins
Based on	Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Produced by	Stephen Bayly
Starring	Vanessa Redgrave Natascha McElhone Rupert Graves Michael Kitchen Alan Cox Lena Headey Amelia Bullmore
Cinematography	Sue Gibson
Edited by	Michiel Reichwein
Music by	Ilona Sekacz
Production companies	First Look Pictures Newmarket Capital Group BBC Films
Distributed by	First Look International
Release dates	4 September 1997 (1997-09-04) (San Sebastián Film Festival) 3 June 1998 (1998-06-03) (United Kingdom)
Running time	97 mins
Countries	United Kingdom United States Netherlands
Language	English
Box office	$3,309,421

Mrs Dalloway is a 1997 British drama film, a co-production by the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Netherlands, that is directed by Marleen Gorris and stars Vanessa Redgrave, Natascha McElhone and Michael Kitchen.

Based on the 1925 novel by Virginia Woolf, and moving continually between the present and the past that is in the characters' heads, it covers a day in the life of Mrs Dalloway, wife of a prosperous politician in London.

Plot

On a beautiful morning in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway sets out from her large house in Westminster to choose the flowers for a party she is holding that evening. Her teenage daughter Elizabeth is unsympathetic, preferring the company of the evangelical Miss Kilman. A passionate old suitor, Peter Walsh, turns up and does not disguise the mess he has made of his career and his love life. For Clarissa this confirms her choice in preferring the unexciting but affectionate and dependable Richard Dalloway. At her party Sally turns up, who was her closest friend, so close they kissed on the lips, but is now wife of a self-made millionnaire and mother of five.

Intercut with Clarissa's present and past is the story of another couple. Septimus was a decorated officer in the First World War but is now collapsing under the strain of delayed shell-shock, in which he is paralysed by horrific flashbacks and consumed with guilt over the death of his closest comrade. His wife Rezia tries to get him psychiatric help but the doctors she consults are little use: when one commits him to a mental hospital, he jumps from a window to his death. The doctor turns up late at Clarissa's party, apologising because he had to attend to a patient's suicide. Clarissa stands by a window and ponders what it would mean to jump.

Partial cast

• Vanessa Redgrave – Mrs Clarissa Dalloway
• Natascha McElhone – Young Clarissa
• Michael Kitchen – Peter Walsh
• Alan Cox – Young Peter
• Sarah Badel – Lady Rosseter
• Lena Headey – Young Sally
• John Standing – Richard Dalloway
• Robert Portal – Young Richard
• Oliver Ford Davies – Hugh Whitbread
• Hal Cruttenden – Young Hugh
• Rupert Graves – Septimus Warren Smith
• Amelia Bullmore – Rezia Warren Smith
• Margaret Tyzack – Lady Bruton
• Robert Hardy – Sir William Bradshaw
• Richenda Carey – Lady Bradshaw
• Katie Carr – Elizabeth Dalloway
• Selina Cadell – Miss Kilman
• Amanda Drew – Lucy
• Phyllis Calvert – Aunt Helena

External links

• Mrs Dalloway at IMDb
• Mrs Dalloway at Rotten Tomatoes