Watch: Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West’s passionate love story retold in new film
Many films have been made about Virginia Woolf, but few have explored her sexuality so brazenly as Vita & Virginia, which tells the story of her love affair with the aristocratic writer and poet Vita Sackville-West. Their passionate relationship served as the inspiration for Woolf’s genre-defying novel Orlando.
Gemma Arterton stars as Sackville-West, while Elizabeth Debicki – best known for her roles in Widows and The Night Manager – plays Woolf in this charged movie, which offers a new, timely insight into the lives of both writers. The tale is given a modern edge through an electro soundtrack by Isobel Waller-Bridge, the sister of Fleabag’s Phoebe.
The two women were both married when they begun their pivotal, romantic relationship, as documented in their emotionally charged letters to each other. “These are two women who bent the institution of marriage to their will,” the film’s director Chanya Button told the Evening Standard. “They didn’t burn the house down - they made it work for them. They’re rebellious and revolutionary and very, very clever. The story is interesting about how we can evolve institutions that we have previously found oppressive.”
Watch the trailer below ahead of the film’s release on 5 July.
