Smarter than the average biopic and genuinely moving, this shrewd film deconstructs the obsessive relationship between Bloomsbury painter Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson) and Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce), caustic belletrist and confirmed homosexual. Viewers
hoping for another high-toned, Anglophilic soap opera will be disappointed: Christopher Hampton's screenplay is as witty, self-conscious and unclubbable as its tragically hip protagonists. Thompson's neurasthenic mannerisms, which usually drive us batty, are appropriate here; Pryce, who was
honored as Best Actor at Cannes, is simply brilliant.
Released:
1995
Rated:
R
Length:
122 mins