This charming little movie doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does do three things. It makes the case that Haley Bennett is one of our most overlooked movie stars, it introduces Austrian actor Elyas M’Barek to English-speaking audiences, and it tells a serious story of unsupported female ambition with a very light touch. Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day is not a perfect success, but it has so much charm that its flaws don’t matter at all.
Katherine Hilbery, known to her friends as Kit (Ms. Bennett) lives in north London in 1910 with her parents (Timothy Spall and Jennifer Saunders) and her passion for astronomy. She is very smart, with a keen eye, but of course as a woman her family believe she should be more focused on finding a husband. Fortunately she has two allies: her cousin Cyril (Misia Butler making a very strong impression) and her childhood best friend William (Jack Whitehall weaponizing his persona unusually well). Her father is convinced marriage to William is the best thing for his daughter, to which William agrees, but Kit will not be distracted from her attempts to go to university. But the only role model she has is an expert astronomer (Frances Barber) who had to publish under her husband’s name and therefore lost her career after his death. Kit has vowed never to lose her independence so that never happens to her, a vow which involves more knockabout physical comedy than you’d expect. But William, who is a good egg, brings Kit to a bluestocking soiree where she meets wealthy suffragette Mary (Lily Allen) and a handsome man named Denham (Mr. M’Barek). Mary offers Kit office space in her printing press to study for her entrance exams. And to Kit’s surprise, Denham starts working for her mother, editing the book she has been writing all of Kit’s life. Gosh, what could happen?
As the title makes unnecessarily clear, this frothy tale of female ambition is based on a novel by Virginia Woolf. It’s therefore hard to know if some of the flaws of the pacing are due to her or to screenwriter Justine Waddell. Other flaws are clearly that of director Tina Gharavi, such as the joke of Mary being a terrible singer going on much too long. But despite these weaknesses, the entire film is so refreshing that they don’t really matter. The opening sequence, of Kit skinny-dipping in the ponds on Hampstead Heath so as better to commune with the stars, sets a mood of pleasure in ideas that somehow never drops. Ms. Bennett brings a red-cheeked appeal with something of Renée Zellweger, in that we like her, feel protective of her and therefore support all her shenanigans. This is impossible to quantify but Ms. Bennett’s ability to create this feeling in the audience – tell me Cyrano could have worked without it – is both unusual and extremely important in a leading actress, because it means we’ll follow her anywhere. Give her some more big parts!
The unusual set designs, such as the background of the heavy printing machines for Kit’s chalkboard calculations, make the indoor spaces feel fresh. The combined charms of Ms. Bennett and Mr. M’Barek work very well as they each play people whose ambitions have been thwarted, Denham’s thanks to class and Kit’s thanks to gender. But neither of them are giving up, though in a tiresome feminine cliché Kit does require several motivational speeches. This makes the choice of Mr. Spall, never one of our most intimidating actors, as the villain here an inspired choice.
The patriarchy can have terrific manners and a great wish for women to succeed, but only as men allow. There’s a symbiosis here with one of the plot strands in Silent Friend (a movie to be recommended for any reason), especially when Kit faces down the more obvious members of the patriarchy. Men openly sneering at a woman’s ambition is rarer these days, but it does happen, and needs to be fought as much as any smothering or bumbling embrace. The wish we have for Kit to figure out who’s really on her side is potent enough that the false steps and silly asides don’t spoil it. Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day has a good heart, and its appeal is as bright as the stars in the night sky.
Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day was recently in theaters.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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