With its stream-of-consciousness style and fragmented perspectives, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is a beguiling novel with understandably few adaptations. Marleen Gorris tried with her shaky 1997 film starring Vanessa Redgrave as the titular protagonist and Rupert Graves as the tragic Septimus. A film inspired by a book inspired by Woolf (Michael Cunningham’s The Hours) followed, and a handful of stage adaptations came and went. Now, Arie and Chuko Esiri, the twin brothers behind the critically acclaimed drama Eyimofe, attempt their own translation — and how lucky we are for that.
Premiering in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, Clarissa is a compelling interpretation of Mrs. Dalloway that transposes the action of Woolf’s novel from 1920s London to present-day Lagos. Clarissa, played with terrific restraint by Sophie Okonedo, is now a Nigerian society woman preoccupied by the infamously jammed Lagosian traffic, interactions with her housekeepers, and memories of youthful summers spent debating the meaning of democracy in Nigeria and the intellectual and political priorities of a developing nation-state.
Clarissa
The Bottom Line
A quiet revelation.
