Carrington

Plot synopsis:
The film, starring Emma Thompson in the title role, focuses on her unusual relationship with the author Lytton Strachey, played by Jonathan Pryce, as well as with other members of the Bloomsbury Group.
The film is divided into 6 chapters.
Lytton & Carrington 1915: During the Great War, Lytton Strachey is travelling to the country and staying at Vanessa Bell's house. There he meets Carrington for the first time but confuses her with a boy and does not hide his disappointment. Lytton is due to face a hearing with the military due to his open opposition to the war. While taking a hike through the countryside, he tries to kiss Carrington but she refuses him. Early in the morning, she walks into his bedroom with the intent of cutting his beard off, but stops at the last minute in contemplation of him sleeping and falls in love with him.
Gertler 1916–1918: Mark Gertler tries to have sex with Carrington, but she refuses, since she thinks that he is only interested in her sexually. Gertler turns to Lytton for aid in wooing her, while trying to help him she falls more deeply in love with him and although he does not fully requite her, he does have feelings for her. While on a trip to Wales he proposes that they live together, acting on this, Carrington searches for a house and finds and refurbishes Mill House in Tidmarsh. When Gertler finds out that Carrington and Lytton are moving in together he attacks the couple.
Partridge 1918–1921: Carrington later meets and falls in love with Ralph Partridge, who has come back from the war. On their first dinner together, Ralph expresses his rather one-sided points of view which are contrary to Lytton's, nevertheless the rugged man appeals to him. Lytton goes on vacation to Italy, Ralph has made very clear his intent of marrying Carrington or leaving altogether to Bolivia to run a sheep farm. Knowing that if Ralph is no longer with him, Lytton will move out of Mill House, she marries Ralph and on their honeymoon they meet with Lytton in Venice. Ralph introduces his friend Gerald Brenan to Lytton and Carrington. Brenan is planning to leave for Spain in order to improve his education and takes a liking to Carrington, which is mutual. Lytton is successful in the publication of Eminent Victorians and manages to become a man of means. The war ends.
Brenan 1921–1923: Although he tries to be loyal to his friend Ralph, Gerald and Carrington carry on an affair and have to skulk about to avoid being caught. Gerald leaves for Spain insisting that Carrington run off with him. She refuses but they continue the relationship until they get caught by Ralph, Lytton manages to avoid the break-up and secretly aids the couple to continue their affair until it ends by itself.
Ham Spray House 1924–1931: Lytton buys Ham Spray and Carrington, he and Ralph move in. Ralph now is in a relationship with Frances Marshall and Lytton is in a relationship with Roger, a younger man from Oxford, while Carrington is carrying on an affair with Beacus, a strapping seaman who has little to say and keeps trying to change Carrington to fit his fantasies but later admits that he is not attracted to her sexually. Carrington becomes pregnant by Beacus but has an abortion. Lytton takes an apartment in London where he intends to live with Roger, but it becomes clear that the relationship shall not be long-lived.
Lytton 1931–1932: Roger and Lytton break up. During a tea party Lytton suddenly becomes ill; Carrington initially is optimistic but afterwards it becomes evident that he will not recover. Carrington tries to commit suicide by locking herself in the garage with the car motor running but is rescued by Ralph. When Lytton finally dies, surrounded by Ralph, Carrington and Gerald, he states "If this is dying, I do not think very much of it." Carrington is utterly depressed but manages to keep her spirits up and convinces Ralph that she needs to be alone, once they have left, she burns all of Lytton's personal possessions and takes a gun and finally manages to kill herself.

Tags: romantic

Review:
This tells an emotionally complete tale of Dora Carrington and her love for Lytton.
Each character is so well drawn and acted (Special credit must go to Emma Thompson and Jonathon Pryce, although the rest of the cast is also good) that you know how they are feeling even when it is not directly said or implemented.
"How do you spell intangible'?" Dora Carrington asks of Lytton Strachey midway through this film as she sits writing at her desk.
Carrington tells the story of people who tried, in their own way, and at a time when society did not encourage such experiments, to acknowledge openly what most of us are aware of but still reluctant to discuss: that a great many differences exist between love and desire.Carrington is one of the great epic romances, but a romance where sexual congress between the two who are passionately in love with each other has nothing whatever to do with the deep wells of feeling they share with each ther.
Like The Unbearable Lightness Of Being and Out of Africa, Carrington is a film that dares to examine the difference between desire and love, and looks at an adult subject in an adult way.
As opposed to Hollywood's usual matter-of-fact insistence that love is a game with a win/lose dialectic simplistically painted in broad stokes, Carrington traces, rather, the fact that love is indeed a mystery which must be acknowledged and honored for the way that it can bring out the best in both people rather than a way of keeping emotional score.Emma Thompson is able to bring out the awkward, self-effacing aspects of Dora Carrington all the way down to the pigeon-toed stance the way the real life Carrington apparently stood.
With all the impatience of a little girl who wishes that one day she'll wake up and finally find herself to be a sophisticated woman, she worships Lytton for his "cold and wise" attitude, his ability to see straight through the conventions of the time, and adopts him as her emotional mentor.She's an artist whom everyone in the Bloomsbury set knew, even though she never really considered herself a part of the circle, unlike Lytton, whom everyone swarmed around for his scorched earth policy of anti-Victorian insights and rapier wit.
Carrington, it would appear, spent her whole life trying to figure herself out, like any true artist, and Thompson very ably transmits that lost quality throughout the film: even as she gains her confidence socially, sexually and artistically, the motivations of her heart she would never let be pressured, no matter how much physical affection and attention she needed.
Which I think is an important distinction to make.A virgin many years past the point of reason, it is as if Carrington bought in to the sexual revolution of the flapper era between the world wars and the way it tried to repeal the oppressiveness of Victorian morals, learning how to cultivate and appreciate the sensual needs of the body, but deep down realized that a healthy, vigorous sex life with a plethora of partners does not necessarily mean more love, but simply more sex.
As Carrington points out in the film, with Lytton she was able to be herself in all her confusion and joy, and without the obligatory pressures of regular sexual performance was able to find in Lytton the only person she ever really felt emotionally comfortable with.
Echoing that great line of TS Eliot's in Four Quartets, of a "love beyond desire."Jonathan Pryce, as Lytton Strachey, has the honor of portraying one of the best screen roles of all-time.
Because Carrington is intelligently written, directed, and acted, however, we do not see the behavior of each of them as simply willful and spoiled, but as part of the contradictions they need to stay individuals in a culture, and at a time, where the conventional notions of love and sex were strictly regimented.Jonathan Pryce plays Lytton with a sort of detachment that is supposed to come from the character's distaste for commitment.What's most surprising about this epic romance is that given the amount of territory it traverses (seventeen years) at an almost leisurely pace, it clocks in at only a hair over two hours, but when those two hours are over, you certainly feel as if you've been somewhere, seen something, been privy to so many more truths and realizations than you'll see in any other standard film about a romance.
Emma Thompson portrays Dora with great sensitivity, depicting her other loves and lovers as genuine yet never enough to supplant her love of Lytton.
(That advice could have been useful to a few of the previous reviewers, in fact.) For those who don't have to be hit over the head, though, this film is a riveting masterpiece about the varied forms human love can assume--and a reminder that subcultures, like the Bloomsbury Group, have always given social norms a wide berth.
Emma Thompson in a period piece--I would bet that's a pretty good movie, and 'Carrington' did not disappoint me.
It concerns the unusual relationship of writer Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce) and painter Dora Carrington (Thompson) in their insular world of upper-class friends and other artists in England between the Great Wars.
I caught it on cable which allowed me to sip on a brandy while the film took its time unfolding in a style that I would describe as a splendidly animated coffee table book.I am moved to comment on Carrington to express my gratitude to its makers..
"Carrington" has Christopher Hampton's great stamp on it and the fine performances of Emma Thompson (as the lead, artist Dora Carrington), and Jonathan Pryce (hilarious as Lytton Strachey).
Also in the cast are Sam West, Jeremy Northam, Steven Waddington and Rufus Sewell, all entangled in some way with Carrington and all the time the love of her life is the one man she can't fully have.Her story is a tragic one and extremely moving, with a lot of twists and turns along the way.
This is how Carrington would see the narrative, and it is a rather clever approach to centering it in her eye, if you can center down and read the pictures.You also see her bias in many of the decisions related to the mechanics of the plot: her appearance changes little in 17 years; her affairs are always seen, but those of Lytton are not; and we are denied fascinating details (her father's death, the famous gatherings of the intelligently eccentric Bloomsbury Group) that she would have considered unimportant.As the presentation is visual, Emma Thompson must dramatize physically, and so she does.
If you don't have any sort of idea who Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey are, or the avant-garde world in which they moved, then the movie will seem very obscure and disjointed.Regarding the movie, it is odd and melancholic, but richly intelligent and rewarding, particularly with repeated viewings.The cinematography is attractive without being showy.
Michael Nyman's score is haunting and uniquely beautiful.And the casting is perfect, particularly Jonathan Pryce as the ironic Bloomsbury butterfly Strachey, and Emma Thompson as the strangely alluring Carrington, who's heart beats fiercely with love for him, despite the fact that neither of them will ever be able to do anything about it.My personal favorite scene is when they are sitting under the tree, and Carrington tells Lytton how she feels, and he understands.They are both so peaceful and content..
What if everyone followed their heart, and nothing but?Carrington is a buried treasure that depicts the relationship between painter Dora Carrington and author Lytton Strachey in WWI England, a beautiful existence of cottages and countryside.
By the end of the film, one realizes that the true heartbreak is caused by how much they wound up guarding their feelings in spite of following them, and in spite of the nature of their incompatible sexualities.You could never find a better fit to play Dora Carrington.
Thompson understands that that is why Carrington refuses her body to her lover early in the film.
Her impatience for complicated situations causes her to ride roughshod over the feelings of those to whom she finds herself to be closest, and when she finds that in her penchant for the immediate, she learns the harsh truth that she has not been embracing her greatest moments.Her primordial flaws come at the expense of Strachey, played by Jonathan Pryce, who seems to love the breezy theatricality of the role, a clear eccentric from his first moment, who gives the impression of being completely aloof and prissily high-maintenance.
Had the film gone without Nyman's music, it might not have had the moving power behind its unaffectedly real and wise, not to mention true, story, and we might not have loved its two central characters.
Nora Carrington, a painter, loved Lytton Stachey, the famous essayist, with complete devotion.
The first person, outside of Lytton, that Carrington falls for is a man who is only interested in a physical relationship.
If you watch this film closely, you will notice that there is only one point in the movie where Carrington goes outside the circle.
If one approaches this movie from the position of a homophobe or from one who has intolerance of different ways that people choose to conduct their emotional lives, then it will not appeal.The film has faults - it is sometimes too episodic and the motivations of some characters are unclear.
However, it is a different look at the love between a man and a woman -  a love that was denied sexual expression.Rather than objecting to the "promiscuity" of the main characters, I was touched by the emotional honesty that existed between them - whether they were having sex or not.The artistic era in England, after the First World War, was a fascinating time.
We might have something to learn about emotional honesty from those in this story.Dora Carrington was a very interesting woman and and Emma Thompson portrayed her unending love for the gay Strachey in the best work I have seen from her.So, do give this film a chance, and try to approach it with that elusive (for some) open mind..
This movie is a wonderful story about an "impossible love affair" between a British Bloomsbury writer and Dora Carrington, a promising painter.
Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce (Best Actor Award, Cannes) are here at their highest performances.
(we all sucked in our breath at the same moment at the end.) it's a film that, if you let it -- and it doesn't hurt to know a bit about lytton and carrington beforehand -- will take you somewhere magical.
Espesially the great acting...Pryce and Thompson are outstanding...and the tragic true story.made me realise that people really take their lives for love .
The devotion of Ms. Thompson's character for Carrington is quite touching despite the fact that the relationship isn't all she can hope for.
The acting in this movie is remarkable and Emma Thompson gives an amazing and believable performance as Dora Carrington.
Jonathan Pryce, whom I had never heard of before this movie, is wonderful as well as the gay Lynton Stratchy.The plot of the film is quirky and orignal, and the cast of supporting actors is good too.
I thought it was a beautiful and sad story -- and a true one -- about two artists who spent many years living together, and loving one another, despite his attraction only to men.
Emma Thompson's performance in this film about Dora Carrington, a talented painter during the early 1900's, was absolutely incredible.
She only cared about Lytton, her homosexual friend and the subject of her real, passionate love.This film is fantastically acted and is absolutely enthralling.
The characters have great depth and come together to create an intellectually, as well as emotionally, stimulating film.I found the acting to be superb and, despite the distinct lack of action for much of the film, I never felt bored or like the movie was moving too slowly.The movie is perpetually visually stimulating without the kind of technological flare that most mainstream movies contain, nowadays.
Carrington loved the homosexual not for his physical appearance but for his soul, his outlook on life, his comfort.
With talented actors forming the cast, having an interest in fact-based dramas and with a remarkable story of a very interesting platonic romance between Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey, 'Carrington' had a lot going for it.
Lytton is a gay writer who's type is specifically young men, Dora has had many lovers, but they only love her body and not her personality.
Biopic of Edwardian painter Carrington and her platonic relationship with author Lytton Strachey.
Emma Thompson, as Dora Carrington, is quite good in this.
Sexually they had very progressive attitudes, and generalizing to perhaps a dangerous extent, they viewed personal commitments which had to be preserved as all important, but believed these commitments were made between the individuals concerned and were no business of either the Church or the State.Featured in this film are Emily Carrington and Lytton Strachey.
Both are played (by Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce) with remarkable depth and sincerity.These brief comments may help anyone who has read little of the characters involved to understand why the film is of real interest to so many older viewers; they can do nothing to convey the charm and yet knife sharp precision it shows in displaying the activities of its principal protagonists.
Today I suspect that some will find it boring, but I believe they will be far fewer than might be expected from the subject matter - this is a prime example of one of the very few outstanding film biographies where a viewer almost feels he or she has got to know the actual characters being portrayed...
I never heard of Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson, here) either, the painter around whom this particular story revolves.It's an elegant soap opera.
She was far from that as just two pages reveals in Leon Edel's book, "Bloomsbury A House of Lions" where he analyzes the Carrington/Strachey relationship using the same material that was the basis for this film.To say she was a confused and emotionally odd collection of forces is an understatement.
That is not the sort of character who is nice for a movie but the truth of it is that Carrington was not nice and this film continues to present her in a way that is not honest.Unfortunately mainstream movies cannot show the horrible faults of those that it elevates to biography status.The film as a production is very good and Jonathan Pryce as Strachey holds the work together.
The true story (it says here) of painter Dora Carrington and writer Lytton Strachey (portrayed by Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce).
The film's subject matter is welcome; it's execution is less so.Ms. Thompson is good, albeit unusually cast; distractingly, her appearance changes little during the story's decades.
Much of the film is visually beautiful; perhaps, its greatest strength is Denis Lenoir's photography.***** Carrington (1995) Christopher Hampton ~ Emma Thompson, Jonathan Pryce, Samuel West.
A muted, rather depressing British-French co-production regarding the unconsummated love affair between painter Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson) and writer Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce) in the early 1900's.
Slow-moving film looks nice but never comes to life, despite the perfectly-cast Thompson and Pryce.
Unfortunately this film  does not concentrate on the many artistic achievements but on the bizarre sex lives of Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey.
The story of a young painter Dora Carrington that goes through her various lovers and husbands but focuses on the constant, unusual friendship she shared with the camp writer Lytton Strachey.
However this doesn't mean I wasn't interested in their story as, from the start of the film, the strange nature of their relationship is a constant hook  even if the film also draws on Carrington's wider life of lovers and loves.
Support is good and contains quite a few well known faces, but the film is at it's strongest when the lovers etc are to one side and the focus is on Carrington and Strachey.I wasn't totally sure what it make of the film, but I feel confident that I would have enjoyed it more if I had a working knowledge of the work of both artists.
I had never heard of Dora Carrington or Lytton Strachey, and actually, I thought the movie wasn't bad.
The actors aren't given enough to do, and the story wanders off course.A lot of questions are left unanswered; What on earth did Dora Carrington, played beautifully by Emma Thompson, see in that daft old twit Lytton Strachey?
Yes, even in an art film there are reasons for those scenes other than to tell a story.If you're looking for slow-moving character studies set in the Victorian period with some sex thrown in, this is the one for you..
Carrington carried two distinct imbalanced relationships up to the moment she met Lytton Strachey.
As a love story it is intense, very complicated and twisted, as a relationship between man and woman it is as odd as they come.
One of the most heartbreaking love stories ever filmed.
This movie made me love Emma Thompson as an actress even more than before.
This game of musical beds should carry the film, especially given Jonathan Pryce's uncanny impersonation of Lytton Strachey and Emma Thompson's persuasive Carrington.
It was never consummated in a physical sense, although they slept together in the same bed, but their friendship continued until the end of Strachey's life, throughout Carrington's marriage to Partridge and her affairs with other men.
The relationship was further complicated by the fact that Strachey was himself sexually attracted to some of Carrington's other lovers, especially Partridge.
The film's main strength is the quality of the acting, especially from Emma Thompson in the title role and Jonathan Pryce (hidden behind a beard like a quickset hedge) as Strachey.
The film, written and directed by Christopher Hampton, focuses mainly on Carrington's sexual and romantic relationships.