52 Films by Women Vol 10. 28. VIRGINIA WOOLF'S NIGHT AND DAY (Director: Tina Gharavi)
In reviewing this
film, I undertook due diligence, which is to say, I picked up a copy of the
novel and looked at the beginning and the end. In national government, this
counts as a thorough analysis. Suffice to say I did not recognise the movie,
although a character called Katharine Hilbery (American actress Haley Bennett
appearing to channel Florence Pugh) does appear and is first described in
company pouring a cup of tea. The Katharine of the film is first glimpsed
skinny-dipping in Hampstead Pond and staring up at the stars. City of lights,
are you shining out for me? If Gharavi had turned the novel into a musical, it
might have worked better.
I don’t believe that
Gharavi had a mood board, rather a set of actors’ curriculum vitae. Timothy
Spall is rather good at portraying apoplectic fathers who have sent their
emotional intelligence to boarding school from which it did not return.
Jennifer Saunders can embody a vague and inconsequential wife lost in the
self-importance of a never-ending task; Absolutely Fabulous the
television series ran far too long. Jack Whitehall can play an ineffectual twit
so well that he practically sews his performance into a straight-jacket right before
our eyes. Lily Allen exudes naturalism and gets to the point. The gay best
friend – yes, it is ‘club trope-i-cana’ here in 1910 Hampstead – looks like he
might remove his fake moustache at any second. Then there’s Frances Barber who is
fiercely angry. You can relate, not least when a door is opened and her papers
fly around the room. None of the actors appears to be in the same movie as
their neighbour as they orbit around Bennett, who was recently seen as Widow
Clicquot. Watching this film, I could certainly use some French bubbly.
Pictured: Mrs Hilbery (Jennifer Saunders, left) inspects the finger of her daughter Katharine (Haley Bennett) in the company of William Rodney (Jack Whitehall, 2nd right) and Mr Hilbery (Timothy Spall, right) in a scene from the film adaptation, 'Virginia Woolf's Night and Day', scripted and produced by Justine Waddell and directed by Tina Gharavi. Still courtesy of Vue Lumiere (UK)
Gharavi not only required the services of two editors, Hansjörg
Weißbrich and Ben Wilson but also the support of veteran editor Mick Audsley. I
can only conclude this was necessary because of the lurches in tone, which
include a character collapsing and dying and a dog that appears to be dead when
a photograph is taken but subsequently registers signs of life.
Woolf’s novel rather resists adaptation – it certainly
doesn’t court it – but is treated as a canvas onto which the film’s creators
can inject gimmicks that may be considered in the spirit of the author’s later
work. Woolf herself (as played by Erika Linder) makes a cameo appearance at a
party. Misia Butler, a transgender actor, is cast as Katharine’s
cousin Cyril Otway, whom Katharine uses as a referee to get into university;
Woolf later wrote the book (specifically Orlando) on gender
fluidity. These decorations aren’t in themselves objectionable but cannot
disguise the film’s lack of a coherent mise-en-scene. You watch and feel
nothing, not even amusement.
It hardly matters that the film is a British German
co-production with scenes shot in both countries. Gharavi keeps her camera
close to the actors and uses stylised cutaways in an early scene in which Katharine
(calling herself Kit) attends an all-male meeting at the Astronomy Society. The
stamping of feet evokes the silencing of women in public places but is imagined
by Katharine as she stands up (as a man) to argue for the admission of women.
The motion is roundly rejected.
Pictured: Stargazing. Would-be astronomer Katharine Hilbery (Haley Bennett) in a scene from the film, 'Virginia Woolf's Night and Day', an English-German co-production scripted and produced by Justine Waddell and directed by Tina Gharavi. Still courtesy of Vue Lumiere (UK)
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what I liked about the
film, namely a pram pushed by Katharine that contains her stargazing equipment.
It has large wheels that seem almost too thin, as if the minimum amount of
metal were used (there’s a war coming). Props to the props department. The
scenes between Katharine and Ralph Denham (Elyas M’Barek), a man later hired to
edit her mother’s manuscript, suggest a meeting of equal minds and a potential
romance which intentionally goes nowhere. Katharine doesn’t need a man to
succeed, though it would be nice if her father approved. In one amusing aside, Katharine’s
parents discuss where to display a letter from the university; her father
suggests the lavatory. The street scenes feature a variety of shop windows that
are well-dressed, though there are no butchers or grocers. (In Hampstead?
Preposterous.)
Bathrooms are also referenced during Katharine’s university
interview. There are no facilities for women. Katharine almost accepts
rejection but then marches back to deliver a speech arguing that the university
will one day accept women; the board will look back at this interview and
regret their decision.
If only Waddell and Gharavi started by vividly describing
what life was like in Edwardian England; 1910 saw the death of King Edward VII
and the start of the reign of his successor, King George V, prior to the
latter’s coronation on 22 June 1911. Did men want to forget that they were once
ruled by a woman? Suffragettes – women who undertook organised action to obtain
the right to vote – are introduced early on, as if that were the principal
struggle of the time amongst the educated class. The film oscillates between
comedy and protest. It is crude at both extremes.
At the very start, I was worried. The first sound we hear is
of a body hitting the water. I worried that this might be a suicide – Woolf has
form. However, it is Katharine going for her swim. We are quickly introduced to
William Rodney (Whitehall) who proposes to her – they’ve known each other since
she was six years old. She rebuffs him, much to the disappointment of her
parents who very much expect the engagement to be announced. Katharine’s father
complains of his wife’s slow literary progress. Her note-making is all consuming;
he wants her back. Katharine is keen to share her theory that stars that appear
less bright in the sky are further away; luminosity is an indication of
distance. Her discovery is later claimed by an American woman. Katharine
struggles to read the article in her father’s newspaper. ‘You ripped it,’ he
complains.
In a scene that appears from nowhere, Katharine is taken by
William to a soirée in which he gives a reading – we don’t hear much of his
work. There she meets suffragette Mary Datchet (Allen), who appears to be the
most normal person in the room. Mary invites Katharine to her office, which
contains a printing press and some metal arms that go up and down – I could not
discern their purpose. ‘The type is too small,’ Mary complains, as if somehow
the typeface wasn’t previously decided.
Katharine doesn’t join the suffragettes. She is suffragette
adjacent, in the same way that the film is comedy and drama adjacent. Instead,
she focuses on establishing herself as serious about science. Marie Curie is
never mentioned. When her father forbids her to study astronomy, Katharine
decides to marry William to leave the family home. However, she knows in her
heart that she cannot simply exploit him.
The big comic climax is the launch of Mrs Hilbery’s book,
‘The Elephant in the Room’. Saunders delivers a speech describing biographies
are fiction. This is one of the few scenes that lands, though in a wilfully
uneven movie, that isn’t saying much. A dinner scene in which Cyril’s father
(Simon Phillips) complains that his son is a ‘Nancy’ is also effective, less so
the response to the question, ‘do you know what a Nancy is?’ ‘A place in
France,’ someone suggests.
There is little to recommend in the writing or direction of
the film. This is not to suggest that Gharavi has no future as a film director,
but she should choose material that better lends itself to cinematic
storytelling.
Reviewed at Screen Two, Crouch End Picture House, North
London, Saturday 20 June 2026, 14:00 screening
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