Rating: 
Summary: A day in the life spent looking back to the past
Review: "How dangerous it is to live for just one day." So muses Mrs. Dalloway as she prepares for her party that evening. All day long she remembers her youthful time spent with the three loves of her life---Peter, Sally, and Richard. On the same day, Septimus Warren-Smith, a young man suffering from delayed shell-shock, relives the terror and horror from the First World War, as he and his wife seek the help of an eminent psychiatrist. In the end you wonder, did Mrs. Dalloway and Septimus make the right choices? Somehow you realize that life is beautiful.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent going away gift...
Review: ...for someone you detest, but for whom convention dictates such: Prospective movie heaven transmutes into actual movie hell. By comparison, "My Dinner With Andre" is action-adventure.
Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway (the older, portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave) reminisces (ad nausea, as do others) about past relationships, love affairs (with lesbian overtones), or lack thereof. Between reminiscences, she plans that evening's house party. The reminiscences are interminable flash-backs, flash-forwards and flash-sideways between the cast of characters as young adults and two modern-day threads thirty years later. The film's first 53 minutes contains 41 such flashes, averaging every 1.3 minutes. The total 92 minutes contain 49 such flashes, averaging every 1.88 minutes. (The horror this reviewer experienced, dear reader, in the interests of an accurate review!) Sporadically (sowing more confusion) parallel, irrelevant and unrelated side-flashes occur: Ex-soldier Septimus experiences post-traumatic stress syndrome because of the battlefield death of war-buddy Evans. Sixty minutes and eight side-flashes in, Septimus commits suicide, fortuitously ending these irrelevant detours.
Young Clarissa is portrayed by Natascha McElhone. Peter Walsh, rejected lover from Clarissa's early life, is alternately portrayed by Michael Kitchen (older) and Alan Cox (younger); Richard Dalloway, the rival who Clarissa married, by John Standing (older) and Robert Portal (younger). Summing the time jumps in this flick would give whole new meaning to the title of Carl Claudy's 1933 novel "A Thousand Years A Minute". Moral: When doing 30-year flash-backs, minimize them and avoid character close-ups at all costs! Clarissa is half a head taller than both Peter and Richard in older age, previously being inches shorter, with other attribute disparities. Even sneaky camera angles (including platforms?) don't succeed.
Dialog is mostly trite drivel. Clarissa's voice-overs reach a peak of foppish snobbery and arrogance (shades of "Scarlet Pimpernel") during the big party, where her over-riding thought, amidst all this past love-life havoc, is the house party's success. (Is the film's whole point Clarissa's fundamental shallowness and Peter's great good fortune in inadvertently not marrying her?)
This reviewer has not read the book, but this turkey offers nothing which would motivate such. The DVD's picture is fine, except the presentation is non-anamorphic widescreen, meaning that using a system which assumes anamorphic input (for example a high-end HDTV and compatible DVD player) will likely produce unexpected results! Sound volume tends to be uneven.
Rating:
Summary: Speechless
Review: Having watched Mrs. Dalloway after having looked for it for at least three years, I can only say that I am breathless: True to Virginia Woolf's narrative, attentive to every detail, and with such subtlety is this movie made that I could find no better gift than this movie to a lover of Virginia Woolf's works. Vanessa Redgrave astounds with her incredibly moving performance, with a dignified emotiveness as only she can deliver- true to the bird-like Mrs. Dalloway.Fans of explosions and other short-attention-grabbers need not apply, this is prime literature jumping onto the movie screen!
Rating:
Summary: Grateful this movie was made
Review: How lovely to see a movie featuring people in late middle age! I saw this after reading The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway and am grateful that it was made. For a book based so much in the mind, the film does a good job of fleshing out the characters. My only problem was the vast difference between the young actors and the older actors of the same characters. Some of those younger people could not possibly have grown into the older versions! The film also brings to life the horror of war on combatants and civilians alike.
Rating:
Summary: Lovers of the book will surely relish this!
Review: I never imagined a book such as Mrs. Dalloway could be effectively adapted into film...until now. What a lark! What a plunge! Indeed... I found almost all of the characters casted for this film nearly perfect -- and of course, in my opinion, no one could play Mrs. Dalloway so subtly and touchingly as Vanessa Redgrave. What touched me most about the movie were the tantalizing returns to the youthful past, where young Clarissa plays about, laughs, and trades amusing remarks with her friends Sally and Peter Walsh, the man who who loves her helplessly, passionately. It's a moving book, and the movie does justice to the complicated and intertwined ironies of life. As an immense fan of Virginia's work, I must say the telling moment of Sally's kiss is incredibly well done. A new favorite on my video shelf, something I will return to over and over.
Rating: 
Summary: Completes the Original Novel
Review: I recommend this film as an afterthought to the original novel by Virginia Woolf; it will clarify any confusion and bring an intimacy to Woolf's wordy explanations.
Mrs. Dalloway (Vanessa Redgrave/Natascha McElhone) begins her day on a journey to buy flowers for her party. Along the way she encounters a mysterious man ravaged by the memory of war named Septimus Warren Smith (Rupert Graves) who will become a factor towards the end of her delightful day of contemplation. Clarissa Dalloway meets a man from her past, Peter Walsh (Michael Kitchen/Alan Cox) and memories of her exuberant youth flood her with thoughts as she goes about her day as an English upper crust wife. Added to Clarissa's memories are thoughts of her long lost friend Sally (Sarah Badel/Lena Headley) a young woman who once embraced the immaturity of whims. So that in the end a day of celebration becomes a deeper exploration into life than Mrs. Dalloway could have ever expected.
Virginia Woolf wrote the original novel, "Mrs. Dalloway," in 1925 and she intentionally wanted to stir a contemplated thought process into the art of a novel. She succeeded in that her novel is considered a modern classic and is timeless but extraordinarily complicated. However once read I believe that this film will bring about a closeness to Woolf's original characters and some closure to the reading experience. The actors in this film are all very good with a few standouts like, Redgrave, Graves and McElhone. Thankfully the film stays very close to the original novel and any changes are more of an awakening thought than true alterations. Add "The Hours," (novel/DVD) as an added exploration into Woolf's mind as a writer.
Rating:
Summary: The original version of The Hours
Review: If you are a fan of either the novel or film The Hours, then reading and watching Mrs. Dalloway is a must. The Hours was Virginia Woolf's original title for Mrs. Dalloway. Michael Cunningham cleverly took that title and turned into a novel that matches Mrs. Dalloway for its shear beauty. But this is a movie review and I can tell you that Vanessa Redgrave is brilliant in the title role. She should have been nominated for an Oscar at the very least. A day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, planning a party, remembering her life and loves. It's a lovely adaptation from Woolf's novel. And of course begins with "Mrs. Dalloway decided she would buy the flowers herself." Buy this yourself. You won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: A related book suggestion
Review: If you liked this video, you MUST read "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham, the recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award. It is a beautiful book that plays back to the real life of Virginia Woolf as she is writing "Mrs. Dalloway." "The Hours" also encorporates the stories of two fictional 20th century American women, one in present day New York, the other in post WWII Los Angeles--each of whom echoes the fictional Clarissa Dalloway. An astonishing accomplishment by a marvelous writer!
Rating:
Summary: A Graceful Adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway
Review: MRS. DALLOWAY, the film, has a jolting beginning: the battlefield of WWI with a scene revealing Septimus Warren-Smith in abject terror that his friend Evans is about to walk into a mine explosion, a recurring memory for this character throughout the film. One wonders how MRS DALLOWAY could start there - until the story gradually unfolds. Then this seeming idiosyncrasy is shown to be just one more bit of evidence that the screenwriter is very in tune with the meadering writing style of Virginia Woolf. What a joy to see a novel of such sophisticated complexity be adapted into a movie that is fluid, rich in characterization, thoroughly grounded in the technique of how Woolf mixed memory with present reality in her telling such an indepth history of a woman a bit out of synch with her world, all in one day in June, 1923, as she prepares one of her beloved parties. Indeed, this film suggests that life is a 'party' where new acquaintances are made, old acquaintances are at times tolerated for social reasons, and the entirety of one's past can be summoned by the surprise appearance of signifcant people. This film is blessed with the presence of Vanessa Redgrave whose Mrs Dalloway is wholly credible. But the integration of Clarissa Dalloway's past with her present is so adroit that all of the characters in the present are greatly enhanced. Her love of Peter Walsh and of Sally say a lot about Virginia Woolf's ability to define the inner aspects of her character. Oh, and by the way, the beginning of the film introduces the thread that runs throughout - Septimus elects suicide as an answer to his life's questions, and we are left wondering if this might not be a viable thought running through the mind of Clarissa Dalloway as she reflects on her life choices at the end. A brilliant cast of characters, in every role, dressed to perfection and photographed in echt, period England further enhance this wonderful film. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Rating:
Summary: A Graceful Adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway
Review: MRS. DALLOWAY, the film, has a jolting beginning: the battlefield of WWI with a scene revealing Septimus Warren-Smith in abject terror that his friend Evans is about to walk into a mine explosion, a recurring memory for this character throughout the film. One wonders how MRS DALLOWAY could start there - until the story gradually unfolds. Then this seeming idiosyncrasy is shown to be just one more bit of evidence that the screenwriter is very in tune with the meadering writing style of Virginia Woolf. What a joy to see a novel of such sophisticated complexity be adapted into a movie that is fluid, rich in characterization, thoroughly grounded in the technique of how Woolf mixed memory with present reality in her telling such an indepth history of a woman a bit out of synch with her world, all in one day in June, 1923, as she prepares one of her beloved parties. Indeed, this film suggests that life is a 'party' where new acquaintances are made, old acquaintances are at times tolerated for social reasons, and the entirety of one's past can be summoned by the surprise appearance of signifcant people. This film is blessed with the presence of Vanessa Redgrave whose Mrs Dalloway is wholly credible. But the integration of Clarissa Dalloway's past with her present is so adroit that all of the characters in the present are greatly enhanced. Her love of Peter Walsh and of Sally say a lot about Virginia Woolf's ability to define the inner aspects of her character. Oh, and by the way, the beginning of the film introduces the thread that runs throughout - Septimus elects suicide as an answer to his life's questions, and we are left wondering if this might not be a viable thought running through the mind of Clarissa Dalloway as she reflects on her life choices at the end. A brilliant cast of characters, in every role, dressed to perfection and photographed in echt, period England further enhance this wonderful film. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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