Customer Reviews

Carrington [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

A young female artist falls in love with a known homosexual and the two spend their remaining years in each other's lives. No, this is not a romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts, but "Carrington" is an emotional drama that is a triumph for Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce, and less than perfect for writer/director Christopher Hampton.

The film is good. It takes place in the years 1914-1932 in England. Thompson is Dora Carrington, a troubled artist who falls for homosexual writer Lytton Strachey, played by Pryce. Strachey is a bit of a dramatic, suffering from "old age" and other infirmities, although he would be considered a young man. Strachey is first attracted to Carrington, thinking she is a young boy thanks to her pageboy haircut and lack of makeup.

The two fall in love the only way they can: unphysically. They share a bed, but have no real sexual relationship and pursue the kind of physical love they cannot find with each other. Virigin Carrington falls for an angry artist who cannot understand their four year relationship with no sex. She is simply not attracted to his body, but gives in anyway, finding she does not enjoy sex anyway. She breaks it off with him, using her impending cohabitation with Strachey as a reason. She then brings home uptight army soldier Ralph, played by Steven Waddington. He is a man's man who does not understand all these artists and conscientious objectors (to WWI), but beds Carrington and, the film implies, Strachey. Ralph and Carrington marry and Ralph brings home friend Gerald for Strachey to "get to know." Gerald then suddenly falls in love with Carrington. The two have an affair. Strachey finds and loves a younger man named Roger, and Carrington dumps Gerald, later finding a guy with a boat who really likes his sex on the high seas. Ironically, he is not sexually attracted to Carrington, the very reason she broke up with the angry young artist. Strachey and Carrington end up back together in their strange living arrangement, and both meet their fates.

Thompson and Pryce are so good here it hurts. The main problem I had was with Hampton's choice of subject matter. He based the film on a book about Strachey, titled the film after Carrington, and I kept noticing a real lack of focus as to the film's main character. Hampton also writes Strachey like he is a poor man's Oscar Wilde, coming up with pithy sayings in between heartbreaks. Carrington comes across as flighty and confused, but we do not see how disturbed she is until after Strachey's death, and Hampton could have elaborated on that a little more. More scenes about Carrington and Strachey's work might have helped as well. The two hour movie feels like compressed images from a long running soap opera. Why should the viewer care so much about these characters?

Hampton the director is wonderful. In one scene, Carrington sits on a stump and, through a giant bank of windows, watches her husband and his live in mistress, Carrington's own new lover, and Strachey and Roger, all getting ready for bed. Hampton keeps the scene sad without becoming voyeuristic, as Carrington seems to be silently questioning all these men who have brought her to this place in time. Carrington's death is also handled tactfully.

I would recommend "Carrington," but with the reservations about the script. I definitely would recommend it on the performances alone, if nothing else.

This is rated (R) for mild physical violence, mild gun violence, profanity, some female nudity, brief male nudity, strong sexual content, strong sexual references, and adult situations.

This movie will force you to ask yourself the difficult question, "Have I ever really known love?", and cause you to long for a friendship that will endure the span of your own lifetime.

This movie is a romance, but there are no wooing words of passion between the two main characters. This movie is a bodice ripping hot bed of passion, but the two main characters never have sex with each other.

Do we choose the people that we will love, or are they prechosen for us? Whatever you feel or think about this movie, trust me, it won't be a lukewarm opinion. It was well worth the money spent for this DVD.

If you liked this one, I would also highly recommend, "Henry and June" with Fred Ward & Uma Thurman, "Delta of Venus" with Costas Mandylor, "Red Shoe Diaries - The Movie" with David Duchovny & Billy Worth and "Nora" with Ewan McGregor & Susan Lynch.

If you care at all about great acting, you must see this film. The story of Lytton Strachey and Dora Carrington, two characters you will never forget, will stand as one of the great love affairs of the last century. That their's was not a sexual affair, only serves to expand our understanding of what love is and can be. Emma Thompson equals or betters all of her previous film work, while Jonathan Pryce is a revelation as the openly gay Strachey. If you are a fan of Merchant/Ivory, or Terence Davies, or Marleen Gorris, you will love this handsomely crafted film biography.

It's an odd thing when a film is perfectly cast, painstakingly researched, extraordinarily well-written, and wonderfully acted, that still it should feel a bit lifeless, stolid and conventional, completely unlike the characters it's illuminating. Look-alike Jonathan Pryce as the homosexual Lytton Strachey and the always remarkable Emma Thompson as the passionately heterosexual (Dora) Carrington act their hearts out, bringing vividly and with complete believability to life one of the oddest couples in recent history, but while Christopher Hampton has made his reputation on excellent writing such as we see here, his direction is leaden, and the film is interesting more for the work of the actors and the real people they play, rather than from any great feat of filmmaking. Sadly, not many people saw the film in the theatres despite the achievements of the cast.

Dora Carrington, though a painter of note, was most famous for her life-long, rather self-abasing devotion to Lytton Strachey, the writer of a number of essays and criticisms, who later published a witty expose of four "Eminent Victorians," which was subersive and significant, both literarily and financially. But like many of the Bloomsbury set to which he and Carrington more or less belonged, he was arguably more remarkable for his eccentricity, wit, and whimsical personality than for a rather slender body of brilliant writing. Pryce's portrayal of him is delightfully unrestrained and flamboyant--when he and Ottoline dance at a party, they are a pair of absurdist clowns, having a marvelous time with no concern for anyone else`s opinion. Carrington was his devoted and loving but non-sexual partner (she once described herself as his pen-wiper, there to serve him, asking nothing in return), and between them, at first through her selflessness, then through his own recognition of the rarity of this devotion, there grows a love deeper than most marriages. Sexual passion is something they both choose to deal with independently, and surrounding themselves with lovers who somehow also manage to (mostly) rise above sexual jealousy, they live happily together almost from initial meeting to their deaths.

Her early life gave no clue that she would become such a committed non-conformist. After her graduation from the Slade School of Fine Art in London and the winning of a number of prizes, she was considered a painter of great promise, and became indeed, a quite prolific and interesting painter, but one who never even sought to show her work, despite much interest. Instead she painted to satisfy herself and others, and filled her homes with countless paintings (most famously her portrait of Lytton), especially portraits of friends and lovers, as well as covering every wall and piece of furniture with glorious scenes, delighting everyone who visited.

The two were introduced by Virginia Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell (Janet McTeer), while Carrington was visiting her and, dressed in men's clothing with her hair shorn in a Dutch boy's bob, she was mistaken by Lytton for a boy--his dismay at learning that the "lovely boy" romping with Nessa's sons is a young woman is amusing. At first Carrington detested him, but they spent a great deal of time with Lady Ottoline (so brutally lampooned by D. H. Lawrence in "Women in Love," she is treated here with great affection). The up-and-coming painter Mark Gertler (played by Rufus Sewell with his usual vigor and intensity), has enlisted Lytton's help in his quest to seduce the reluctant virgin he has spent four years pursuing, so the two are much thrown together and soon discover that they are born soul mates, feeling a great ease and openness with one another.

Eventually they decided to live together, with Carrington doing all the work to transform their first small house into a magical realm, while Lytton supported them with his earnings from the sudden, unexpected success of "Eminent Victorians." They lived in perfect harmony, despite the fact that her physical passion for this man had to be diverted into relationships with other men. She married a man with whom Lytton was more in love than she, and though Rafe Partridge (Steven Waddington) did not requite Lytton's physical passion, he became a steady third in their lives with all three eventually owning their most famous home, Ham Spray House, together. Eventually a fourth was added to the family, when Rafe fell in love with another woman, Frances (Alex Kingston), who managed to fit herself into the household, too (after Carrington`s death, they married). Throughout their years together, both Lytton and Carrington had many lovers, most of whom remained constants in their lives. Several were with him when he died of a sudden and fatal illness, which devastated Carrington. Though stories of her un-witnessed end vary, due to the need of others to try to protect her reputation, what we see in the film is accurate in itself--what happened over the next couple of days is the time about which there are several accounts.

Carrington's generous and loyal nature endeared her to everyone she knew, and she and Lytton were a happy if unusual couple. Thompson plays her with intelligence and a sort of glowing health and energy that seduces us; she lights up the screen, and despite the boyish dress and early gracelessness, her face is as clear and lovely as the summer sky and she utterly convinces us of Carrington's irresistible charm--that many men desired and loved her is hardly surprising. Just as Lytton's fragile frame and effeminate gestures would, in one less brilliant and magnetic, become difficult to live with, his kindness and humor more than make up for any of the extra work others have to do in order to ensure his comfort and security. Even the extra manly Rafe is tolerant of Lytton's slightly silly ways. They all work hard--he is the delicate and difficult center of everyone's world, at least externally, but as we get deeper into the relationship, we see that without Carrington, he might very well have been lost to ill-health and a tendency to melancholia--she may appear to be the satellite revolving him, but a greater insight reveals that she is the solid rock upon whose stability he is entirely reliant.

The film does capture the feeling of camaraderie that the Bloomsbury artists shared, their refusal to participate in the horrors of World War I, their solidarity despite the constant intrigues and affairs, and gives us some insight into the process of making art, of being artists unafraid to live outside the constraints of society. But most of all, Hampton, Thompson, and Pryce seem to really understand this unique relationship that ran so deep--the two loved and understood one another to a degree rare in life, and they seemed to be aware of this great gift, treasuring it and keeping it strong. Between them there were no secrets, and while Carrington would have loved Lytton as a woman loves a man, she accepted that this wasn't possible, and poured all her passion for him into being his mother, his sister, his dearest friend, his truest companion. Lytton repaid her devotion equally, and allowed her to build around him a real family which supported and loved him, despite his naturally solitary nature.

The cast, the delightful décor of the homes Carrington made chiefly for Lytton`s comfort, the beauty of Carrington's paintings (please be sure to sit through the end titles, when her paintings are displayed side by side with the credits), are the principle reasons to watch this film which is worth owning, as you'll enjoy it more than once, especially if you're an artist yourself. Even if you're not, you may find yourself wanting to grab a brush and turn an old table into a work of art. Despite Hampton's flawed direction, these two people who fashioned a deeply meaningful relationship despite what most would consider built-in "limitations," are fully brought to life by Emma Thompson in the title role, with Jonathan Pryce firmly by her side, as solid and fascinating as Carrington and Lytton. On the cover of a biography of Carrington is a picture of the two together, outside of Ham Spray House; Thompson's glowing smile and Pryce's dandyish pose are perfect. So perfect are they, that only after I opened the book and read that it was a photo, not of the actors, but of Carrington and Lytton themselves, did I realize how perfectly captured they'd been. I think they would have been pleased to see themselves in this film.

There is probably some profoundly deep irony to the idea that the writer Lytton Strachey was informed by Virginia Woolf that the ravishing young boy he had his eye on was really a woman, the painter Dora Carrington, but it remains outside of my grasp at this point. However, I am not surprised that this story of a profound platonic love between two people is taken from the pages of history, because Hollywood is rarely inclined of the consummations it routinely wishes (remember, the classic tale of Cyrano de Bergerac comes from a play and was not written directly for the screen).

Strachey, Carrington, Woolf and most of the other characters in this 1995 film were members of the Bloomsbury Group, all of whom were eccentric British geniuses who explored the dynamics of human relationships in strange ways when they were not busy exorcising their artistic impulses. In a masterful understated performance Jonathan Pryce plays Lytton, who was a quiet, dry witted, reserved homosexual in his thirties when he met Carrington, played by Emma Thompson, who was 15 years younger and still a virgin. Their first meetings and the strange attraction that would bind them for the rest of their lives are sketched out in the first several scenes. The explanation for why they would live together while loving others is developed throughout the rest of the film. What becomes clear is that no matter who Lytton and Carrington took into their respective beds, or shared between them for that matter, no one mattered more to them. Ultimately, the tragedy of their relationship is not the absence of the physical dimension, but, as is often the case with most relationships, the failure of both to articulate the depth of their feelings to the other until fate cruelly rectifies that error.

Thompson's character is on a par with the other victims of unrequited love she has played with great success in "Howard's End" and "The Remains of the Day." Writer-Director Christopher Hampton, working from Michael Holroyd's book on Lytton Strachey, expands her character through Carrington's art: she must have painted every corner of Ham Spray House, where they lived in Berkshire. She is the film's title character, not only because she survives Lytton, but because after they met and became friends (pure understatement, I assure you) she continued to pursue other interests and people while he was remarkably contempt to enjoy those she brought into their small circle.

Still, it is Pryce's Lytton who is the captivating character. Like most British eccentrics he was a natural epigramist, but with a great sense of restraint, picking his moment for his one rapier thrust (even if it is on his own death bed). Carrington is the one who actively engages in the acts of intimacy between them while we have to remind our selves that Lytton's passive acceptance of it is out of a sense of propriety and not a lack of deep feelings. I have always had a strong affection for love stories that never enter the realm of the physical (is there a sexier scene in movies that the dance in "The King and I"?), and "Carrington" is a film in that tradition, especially for those with an affection for British period dramas.

At first the temptation is to see the movie's focus on Carrington's life as a clever ploy to do a biography of her lover, the far more famous Lytton Strachey, but in the end, the movie is really about Carrington.

Like Lytton, she is emotionally unusual. She waits until her mid-twenties to lose her virginity, and when she does, she finds she is subject to the unbridled passions of every lover who comes her way. Only Lytton, who is openly homosexual, cherishes her the way she wants to be cherished, in ways that leave her free to live her own life.

He is her ultimate love. She is his ultimate love. Neither ever fully engage that romanace and yet being afar seems to keep their love for each other real and close.

Carrington is less a movie about an eccentric homosexual writer than it is a movie about a radical feminist who dares to be her own person. She wants to be in charge of her own life, not the object of some one else's passion. In the same way, she wants to paint and create a total living environment through which she can control her world, she wants emotional control over herself.

Lytton lets her do that, because his writing consumes him, and all his boyish lovers are transitory. The amazing decorative arts effects she paints throughout their houses are reminiscent of the Bloomsbury Group in general, but, in the movie, they represent her will be be in charge of her environment. She has no desire to display her work or sell it. She paints her lovers' images to retain them as she remembers them -- without demanding control over them. Only Lytton gives her the same space.

In Lytton's oddly removed love, she finds the one true love that lets her be. While both Lytton and Carrington take other lovers, their relationship is the steadfast calm that guides both of them through storm tempests of hot passion elsewhere.

In the end, the movie Carrington is about Carrington. Anything you take away from the film about Lytton Strachey is truly just background.

This movie is about Dora Carrington's love life, and is effective in exploring it. Hoever, for those of us who knew of her as an artist and wanted to know more, it is disappointing. Her paintings don't even make it into the film until the final credits, where they seem to beckon one into a fascinating story that the film never told. Why did Carrington paint? What was in her heart and mind? How could a movie about an artist completely neglect her art? It doesn't tell the whole story at all. I was upset and annoyed at this. It's a pattern I've seen all too often, when the people making the movie seem more interested in who an artist or writer slept with than why and how they became great artists in the first place.

Emma Thompson gives the best performance I think anyone could have under the circumstances, but she (and Carrington) deserved a better script. I never felt as if I knew Carrington, because the art that meant so much to her was not part of the film.

Carrington, a female painter, falls in love with the gay author Lytton Strachey, and together they create a relationship without boundaries. This boundless love leads Carrington into several love affairs with other men, but it does not wreck Carrington and Lytton's strong affection for one another. Unconditionally Carrington displays her devotion and respect for Lytton who is reciprocal in his loyalty to their relationship. However, the other men in Carrington's life are not as understanding as Lytton as they demand something in return for their love for Carrington. It is these demands that prevent Carrington from developing her other relationships as she has done with Lytton. Carrington is a fabulous narrative of Dora Carrington's life as it displays her life along with her strengths, which offers a good cinematic experience.

This movie proves again that love is more than a chemical reaction. It does not spell very much out for you. Sometimes it even seems to be just a string of single events. Yet the one thing that becomes clear in the end is that love exists in many different forms.
My only problem was the desciption written on the back of my video tape (not the one pictured above). The person who wrote that can not have understood the movie very well. They made Lytton Strachey look like a cruel man and Carrington like a ... It actually put me off watching it the first time I read it.

I'm not sure if the last reviewer (Lawrence) was aware, but Virginia Woolf was not part of this film. The lady who pointed out to Lytton that Carrington was a girl was Vanessa Bell. Virginia Woolf never had children.
I had to view this film more than once to appreciate it. After all, I felt it should be called 'Lytton' instead of 'Carrington.' This is probably because this film was based on Lytton's biography and not Carrington's.
In fact, Carrington had many affairs according to an interview with Emma Thompson and some were with women but of course, there wasn't time to put all that on film.
Lytton and Carrington were definitely an odd couple and this is an odd but very interesting film!