''Vita & Virginia'' is a 2018

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

romantic drama film directed by Chanya Button. The screenplay, written by Button and

Eileen Atkins Dame Eileen June Atkins, (born 16 June 1934), is an English actress and occasional screenwriter. She has worked in the theatre, film, and television consistently since 1953. In 2008, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress and the Emmy Aw ...

, is adapted from the 1992 play ''Vita & Virginia'' by Atkins. The film stars

Gemma Arterton Gemma Christina Arterton (born 2 February 1986) is an English actress and producer. After her stage debut in Shakespeare's ''Love's Labour's Lost'' at the Globe Theatre (2007), Arterton made her feature film debut in the comedy '' St Trinian's'' ...

Elizabeth Debicki Elizabeth Debicki (born 24 August 1990) is an Australian actress. After studying drama at the Victorian College of the Arts, she made her film debut with a brief role in the Australian comedy ''A Few Best Men'' (2011). Debicki's role in Baz Lu ...

, and

Isabella Rossellini Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (born 18 June 1952) is an Italian-American actress, author, philanthropist, and model. The daughter of the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and the Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted ...

. Set in the 1920s, ''Vita & Virginia'' tells the story of the love affair between

Vita Sackville-West Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as wel ...

and

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

. The film had its world premiere as a Special Presentation at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

on 11 September 2018. It was released in the United Kingdom on 5 July 2019, and in the United States on 23 August 2019.

Plot

Set in the 1920s, the writers Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf move in different London circles. When they meet, Vita decides Virginia will be her next conquest. They have an affair against the background of each of their open marriages.

Cast

Production

On 30 June 2016, ''

Deadline Hollywood ''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. The site is updated several times a day, wit ...

'' reported that British director Chanya Button was to direct ''Vita and Virginia'' from a script by Eileen Atkins, with Evangelo Kioussis of Mirror Productions and Katie Holly of Bl!nder Films as

producers Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

. The screenplay is based on Atkins' stage play ''Vita & Virginia''. Gemma Arterton, who also became an executive producer of the film, had received the first draft from Atkins years before and showed it to Button; and Button subsequently co-wrote the final script with Atkins. On 8 February 2017, it was announced that

Eva Green Eva Gaëlle Green (, ; born ) is a French actress and model. The daughter of actress Marlène Jobert, she began her career in theatre before making her film debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's '' The Dreamers'' (2003). She achieved international reco ...

and Gemma Arterton had been cast in the film. In May 2017, it was reported that Green had left the project due to scheduling conflicts. Green was replaced by Andrea Riseborough. Elizabeth Debicki was eventually cast in the role of Woolf in August 2017, with Isabella Rossellini also joining the production. Financing was procured from the

Irish Film Board Fís Éireann / Screen Ireland, formerly known as Bord Scannán na hÉireann / the Irish Film Board, is the Republic of Ireland's state development agency for the Irish film, television and animation industry. It provides funds for the developm ...

, Piccadilly Pictures, Sampsonic Media, and Lipsync Productions; with Protagonist Pictures handling international sales.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

began in September 2017 in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, Ireland. In August 2017, Thunderbird Releasing acquired the distribution rights for the United Kingdom. Distribution rights for Germany were acquired by NFP, Australia and New Zealand by

Transmission Films Transmission Films is an Australian and New Zealand film distribution company based in Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand founded in 2008 by Richard Payten and Andrew Mackie. History Transmission Films was founded in 2008 by Richard Pay ...

, Czech Republic and Slovakia by CinemArt, Greece by Seven Films, Hong Kong by

EDKO EDKO (Beijing) Distribution () is a Chinese film production company and distributor A distributor is an enclosed rotating switch used in spark-ignition internal combustion engines that have mechanically timed ignition. The distributor's main ...

, Israel by Forum Film, Poland by M2 Films, Portugal by Lusumundo, and in the

former Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...

by MCF. The first film still was released by Protagonist Pictures on 1 November 2017.

Release

The world premiere was held at the

on 11 September 2018. It was selected as the opening night film of the 2019

Frameline Film Festival The Frameline Film Festival (aka San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival) (formerly San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival; San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival) began as a storefront event in 1976. The first ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and the 2019 BFI Flare in London. ''Vita and Virginia'' was released theatrically in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 5 July 2019 by Thunderbird Releasing. It was released in the United States on 23 August 2019 by

IFC Films IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its ...

Home media

The film was released on

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

(VOD) in the US on 30 August 2019.

Reception

Critical reception

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gives the film approval rating based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "''Vita & Virginia'' takes a well-acted and initially intriguing look at the relationship between its real-life protagonists, but is undone by unsatisfying storytelling." According to

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which sampled the opinions of 18 critics and calculated a score of 43 out of 100, the film received "mixed or average reviews".

Accolades

Elizabeth Debicki's portrayal of Virginia Woolf was recognised with a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 22nd British Independent Film Awards. The film was also nominated for Best Makeup & Hair at the 16th Irish Film & Television Awards.

Notes

References

External links

*
''Vita and Virginia''
at British Council Film * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vita and Virginia 2018 films 2018 LGBT-related films 2018 biographical drama films 2010s historical drama films 2010s historical romance films 2018 romantic drama films Biographical films about poets British biographical drama films British films based on plays British historical drama films British historical romance films British LGBT-related films British romantic drama films Irish biographical drama films Irish films based on plays Irish historical films Irish LGBT-related films Irish romantic drama films Lesbian-related films Biographical films about LGBT people LGBT-related romantic drama films Romantic drama films based on actual events Cultural depictions of Virginia Woolf 2010s English-language films 2010s British films