Cast: Tilda Swinton, Charlotte Valandrey, Lothaire Bluteau, Quentin Crisp, Billy Zane
Director: Sally Potter
Producer: Christopher Sheppard
Screenplay: Sally Potter from the novel by Virginia Woolf
Cinematography: Aleksei Rodionov
Music: David Motion and Sally Potter
U.S. Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
The year is 1600 and the country is England. Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is a young nobleman who has found favor with Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp). As a result of his relationship as the "son" of her old age, Orlando is granted the deed to a sizable piece of property. Ten years later, following the death of his father, Orlando falls in love with a beautiful Russian princess (Charlotte Valandrey). After that relationship ends in tragedy, and following a brief-but-disastrous flirtation with poetry, Orlando becomes an ambassador to central Asia. It is now the 18th century and Orlando has lived more than one-hundred years without showing a day's aging. But the most remarkable event of his life -- his sudden and unexpected transformation into a woman -- is yet to come.
Orlando is thin on story but thick on elegance and style. Characters and settings, as well as a brief-but-lavish tour through 400 years of history, take precedence over plot. Even on its own terms, the storyline is weak and riddled with contrivances, questions, and problems. Writer Sally Potter, adapting from Virginia Woolf's novel, takes the approach that the narrative is essentially irrelevant. Its purpose is to allow explorations of Orlando as he/she develops over the years, and of the ever-changing attitudes of society.
Those that want a detailed examination of how a person copes with unusual longevity won't find it here. In fact, other than a throw-away line by Queen Elizabeth (in which she bestows land upon Orlando under the condition that he not grow old and wrinkled like her), there is no explanation given for why the title character neither ages nor dies. This is taken as a given; one of the many plot points glossed over.
Another thing that is more-or-less ignored is the mechanism by which Orlando changes sex. After a long sleep following a battle in which he refuses to kill, Orlando wakes up one morning as a woman. Her reaction is simple -- "Same person...different sex", and she evidences little or no surprise at the sudden transformation.
Little issue is made of how other characters react to Orlando's femaleness. With the exception of Archduke Harry (John Wood), no one seems overly surprised, although the English courts remove Orlando's property since a woman cannot legally inherit land. As one man comments when the Victorian courts can't determine whether Orlando is dead or a woman, "They're pretty much the same thing."
One constant source of interest in Orlando is watching how English society and customs change over the centuries. After Orlando's transformation, it's worth noting the ever-changing size of her gown as it shrinks from its mammoth proportions of the 1700s to the more "natural" garb of the present day. This is only a subtle indication of how women come to be regarded more as people than property.
Other than Orlando, no character is around for more than about 15 or 20 minutes. Billy Zane, who plays the American adventurer Shelmerdine, shares billing with lead actress Tilda Swinton, but is on-screen for only a handful of scenes. The same is true of all the other co-stars.
Swinton gives a masterful performance, displaying amazing range as both a man and a woman. Even though her decidedly-feminine appearance hurts her credibility as a man, the manner in which Swinton speaks and acts during that part of the film are masculine. She is more believable after the transformation, but that's mainly because her looks now match her mannerisms.
Sharing the opposite-gender playing with Tilda Swinton is actor Quentin Crisp, who plays Queen Elizabeth I. There's no difficulty accepting Crisp as the wrinkled old queen. Perhaps this, in addition to other recent males-playing-females, indicate that, given the right physical appearance, it's easier to make up a man like a woman than the other way around.
Those that go to Orlando expecting a tightly-constructed plot will leave with deflated expectations. The power of this movie has little to do with the contrivances centered around an emaciated storyline. See Orlando for its fabulous costumes, fascinating look at changing eras, and impressive performance by Tilda Swinton.
© 1993 James Berardinelli