Your favorite modernist is getting three new adaptations this summer.
Virginia Woolf, the highest oracle for we sad literary girls, is all over the silver screen this summer—thanks to a remarkable trio of new adaptations.
Though her work is famously cerebral—and, well, literary—this is far from Virginia’s first celluloid rodeo. In 1992, the feminist filmmaker Sally Potter took on Woolf’s Orlando, crafting a feverish delight with Tilda Swinton at the center.
In 1997, Marleen Gorris and screenwriter Eileen Atkins took a pass at Mrs. Dalloway, helmed by another grand dame of England (Vanessa Redgrave). And in 2003, we saw a trifecta of best actresses inhabit various Virginias in Stephen Daldry/Michael Cunningham’s The Hours.
To everything, there is a season. But the blooms this summer are once again giving…bury. As David Hudson observed in Criterion, “by some odd coincidence, two new re-imaginings of Mrs. Dalloway have appeared this year within weeks of each other.” And there’s even more Virginia to meet this fall, when Tina Gharavi’s blithe take on Woolf’s Night & Day hits theaters.
