La Ronde on the fringes of Bloomsbury"Carrington" is a sub-Bloomsbury version of La Ronde: X desires Y and sleeps with Z, A wants B, but sleeps with C, and so on and so on. 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. Add a script and cinematography to fulfill the nostalgia quotient, and le voila: life is lived and art is made en plein air and during an eternal summer; winter seems never seems to intrude, and the "staff" keep discreetly in the kitchen and the basement where they belong. All these Good Things should carry the movie. Alas, they do not. As in all biopics, the writing plays fast and loose with the truth. But was it absolutely necessary to insert two of the most famous Lyttonisms: his account of proposing to Virginia Woolf ('ghastly"), and his declaration that he would try to "come between" his sister and a potential rapist? In this tiny circle, desire balked and desire gratified seem almost incestuous.. And the lack of a coherent narrative leaves us puzzled. For example, Lytton's sudden gift of "a motorcar" to Ralph Partridge is unprepared for and opaque. Is he wooing Partridge? Using Partridge as a pander? Demonstrating uncomplicated generosity? The film's failure to answer questions like these saps its interest. "Carrington"isn't dull, exactly; rather, it's beautiful, nostalgic, and inert.

What makes this tale pathetic and even horrifying is that it is true. If the characters central to this saga truly lived their lives in such wretched repression, compulsion, pretension, evasion, subterfuge, denial, longing, jealousy, confusion, suppression, depression, altruism, platonic hypocrisy and lack of courage - then God help them! If their entrapment was a reflection of the age they lived in, then they acquiesced to societal norms and were not the creative, artistic free spirits they pretended or aspired to be. If their ennui was a result of their own inability to live in truth, then their pose was a pretense. There is nothing to admire in this story. Carrington was a coward, Lytton a poseur, and their circle a bunch on namby pamby weaklings. To suicide for a love that never satisfied is the ultimate statement of low self-esteem.If you are a depressive, you may enjoy this movie. Those who live in joy may do better to skip it. Not just skip it, but run, screaming, very fast, in the opposite direction.

The same day I watched this, I watched Prick Up Your Ears right before it. Not only are they both period biopics set in England, but they have a profound chronicle of love in common. Having watched both movies consecutively, it brings me to meditate on the lives and perspectives of creative people. There is a refreshing, Rilke-esquire way of thinking that they follow in their lives. 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. Even if platonic because of Strachey's homosexuality, the relationship was all the same a profound and complex one. When Carrington did form a more physically intimate relationship with a soldier, Strachey made do accepting him as a friend, while the soldier stayed rather edgy, not so much with Strachey's sexual orientation as with the reality that he was a conscientious objector. Yes, there is inescapable trouble linked to the bond between Carrington and Strachey. Yes, there is more pain and guilt than there are good times. But what if they had buckled to social expectations, convention, tradition? What if they didn't follow their hearts? 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. Emma Thompson is perfectly cast, wise and set aside and completely natural. She is natural in the way she looks and natural in the way she carries herself. When we first see her, when Strachey is first introduced to her, we misinterpret the first impression of her, a quiet, reticent tomboy. Carrington, like Thompson, is beautiful but maintains selfhood over everything else. Thompson understands that that is why Carrington refuses her body to her lover early in the film. She never quite seems to grow comfortable with sex no matter her progression in that inevitable field of her life. She in some sense is like a child in spite of her intellectual prowess and her disregard for recognition of her work as a painter. 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. He seems not to take anything seriously, even his unwavering position as neutral in the issue of the war. He is one of those odd and nonchalantly insubordinate older men that make spectators laugh, but part of him quietly enjoys being a source of entertainment. Part of him is terribly troubled by his only minimal success as a writer. Somewhat like Carrington, he still seeks sometime companions more conducive to his most rudimentary needs, and in one instance, we see him laid bare, very unlike his cold and elitist temperament. In this moment, he and Carrington realize that no matter how often they fluctuate on each other's terms, they are each other's shoulders to cry on, and as they have felt as awkward as they've ever let themselves become around anyone else, they feel, whether consciously or not, that they can be completely themselves in each other's company.Their leisurely lifestyle becomes intensely infectious, as is the atmosphere, which is not only wonderful because of the English countryside but because there is an indescribable feel to the contrast of the cinematography, which is not grainy nor is it clear and bright. Maybe it pertains to the same disregard for orthodoxy as Carrington and Strachey. Maybe it is that it doesn't conform to the expectation that historical England be depicted with lushness, nor does it conform to the precondition that a story full of sorrow be depicted with gloom.Michael Nyman's moving and wonderful music score has a similar effect as Howard Shore's music in a David Cronenberg film, a suitably blending pulse of the hearts and lives of the story yet haunting and emotional. 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. And maybe we love them for similar reasons why they love each other.

I had no previous knowledge of Dora Carrington before I found this film. I had learned about the Bloomsbury artists so many years ago I had forgotten their place in history. To say that this story is odd is a gentle understatement. Carrington was someone you would more likely place in the hippie era of the 1960's rather than England of pre World War One. On the other hand, the bohemian artists in Europe had the luxury of acting out some pretty odd relationships; they had fine examples of large living in the previous century - think Lord Byron and a bit later Oscar Wilde and you'll understand.I ended up so smitten by this film that I bought a bio on Carrington and it was worth the effort because the film leaves out so much of what made up her psyche. I'd even argue that the film as good as it is can be confusing because we don't know why she is the woman she is. Carrington carried two distinct imbalanced relationships up to the moment she met Lytton Strachey. She loathed and hated her mother and adored and clung to her father. Electra complex, anyone? Leaving Freud aside (and there is a deep irony in this comment: Lytton's brother became a well known Freudian analyst) Carrington was unprepared for the rush of emotions that Strachey caused in her heart. As an openly gay, brilliant intellectual and important writer, he would have been the last on her list of attractive men. But, love deals odd darts to the heart. After nearly clipping his beard off in his sleep as a planned retribution to his impulsive kiss, she paused, stared down at his placid face and fell madly and deeply in "love". The rest of the movie completes their extremely odd relationship. The important fact is that she never lost any of the intense love for this gentle spirit. She accepted that Lyton was more interested in men, shared lovers with him, opened her heart to anything except separation from him. We can argue that she had transferred her father love to Strachey but of course it becomes a label that in the end will not satisfy the mystery of her heart. There is much to be said about this film. Emma Thompson completely embodied Carrington as totally as an actor can. Aside her was Jonathan Pryce who portrayed Strachey so perfectly that it left those who knew Strachey amazed. The ambiance and rapport between the main actors kept the passion of their evolving love always front and center. We get glimpses of Carrington's torment over Strachey but we never really know the ultimate motivations. What is so overwhelming about this film is that when Lyton finally succumbs the heart break to Carrington was too much for her to carry. It removed her will to live without him to love. I have rarely been so moved by a love affair like this. The music by Michael Nyman is so perfectly evocative of the waves of Carrington's love that the soundtrack seems completely meshed with the story. In the end, watching Carrington make her final choice we are as devastated as she was at her loss of 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. In the end we decide that love at this level is a connection of heart and emotion and commitment that is blind to shape and form and opinions of others. It is a link that is mysterious but tangible. One can only weep in acknowledgment that if we had loved someone that deeply we too would have wanted the escape she chose. An astoundingly profound meditation on love. Phenomenal supporting actors. Superb but heart rending.