Mrs. Dalloway

A surprisingly supple adaptation of Virginia Woolf's dense stream-of-consciousness novel. The action is confined to one hot summer day in 1923, as middle-aged English matron Clarissa Dalloway (Vanessa Redgrave) prepares to give a party and finds herself haunted by thoughts of old friends and lovers. Frequent flashbacks bridge the present and the past, specifically the summer three decades earlier when young Clarissa's (Natascha McElhone) fateful choices -- chief among them her decision to marry staid future politician Richard Dalloway (Robert Portal/John Standing), rather than impulsive Peter Walsh (Alan Cox/Peter Kitchen) -- set her on the path that made her the w...