Vita & Virginia

Much of the dialogue in Vita and Virginia is scooped directly from love letters exchanged between the writers - which, unfortunately, makes for a rather cumbersome screenplay.

It's not as bold as that trio, but it's elevated by some adroit dialogue and knockout performances from Gemma Arterton as Vita Sackville-West, and Elizabeth Debicki as Virginia Woolf.

Maybe dramatizing their correspondence would have worked if it had been paired with convincing dialogue.

This peek into a famous love story makes the audience a participant in the affair, inspiring questions of perspective and truth in love and art, where the only truth worth anything is one deeply felt.

It's never a good sign for your rulebreaking romance when the occasional bits of dialogue between wayward wives and their sad husbands is more human, more feeling, and more emotionally intelligible than that between the lesbian lovers.

The movie's editing undermines both lead performances. Scenes end abruptly, or seem set up for a moment that never arrives.

Unfortunately, the problem with this film is that the lives of the two women are too rich to be reduced to an almost-two-hour movie.

Button’s adaptation of Atkins’ wonderful script doesn’t work. She never really finds the cinematic tools to move the material from the stage to the screen.

The film is an engrossing look at the affair that would later inspire Woolf’s world-famous Orlando — not to mention, a worthy entry into the pantheon of queer historical biopics. Plus, Elizabeth Debicki. Need I say more?

The real problem with Vita & Virginia is that Vita is so thoroughly unlikable and yet she looms large as the wan Virginia's love interest as well as the muse who inspired one of Woolf's oddest works.