Directed by - Stephen Daldry
Writing credits - Michael Cunningham, III - (novel), David Hare - (screenplay), Virginia Woolf - novel Mrs. Dalloway, other writings

Cast
Meryl Streep .... Clarissa Vaughan
Nicole Kidman .... Virginia Woolf
Julianne Moore .... Laura Brown
Stephen Dillane .... Leonard Woolf
Ed Harris ... Richard Brown
Jeff Daniels ... Louis Waters
Miranda Richardson .... Vanessa Bell
George Loftus.... Quentin Bell
Charley Ramm.... Julian Bell
Sophie Wyburd .... Angelica Bell
Lyndsey Marshal .... Lottie Hope
Linda Bassett .... Nelly Boxall
Christian Coulson .... Ralph Partridge
Michael Culkin .... Doctor
John C. Reilly .... Dan Brown
Jack Rovello .... Richie Brown
Toni Collette .... Kitty
Claire Danes .... Julia Vaughan




Virginia Woolf (from the beginning of the movie, her suicide note to her husband Leonard Woolf) - Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad, I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness, you have been in every way all that anyone could be. I know that I am spoiling your life and without me you could work, and you will, I know. You see I... I can't even write this properly. What I want to say is that I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. Virginia.



Virginia Woolf - Good morning Leonard.
Leonard Woolf - Good morning Virginia. How's your sleep?
Virginia Woolf - Uneventful.
Leonard Woolf - Any headaches?
Virginia Woolf - No. No headaches.
Leonard Woolf - Don't you seem pleased?
Virginia Woolf - That's all from this morning?
Leonard Woolf - Yes. This young man has submitted his manuscript. I've found three errors of fact and two spelling mistakes and I'm not yet on page four. You had breakfast?
Virginia Woolf - Yes.
Leonard Woolf - Liar. (inaudible) ......I'm going to send Nelly up with some fruit and a bun. Right, lunch then. Proper lunch, husband and wife sitting down together, soup, pudding and all, by force if necessary.
Virginia Woolf - Leonard, I believe I may have a first sentence.
Leonard Woolf - (big sigh) Work then. Then you must eat.



Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway said.... she would buy the flowers..... herself.
Laura Brown - Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.
Clarissa Vaughan - Sally, I think I'll buy the flowers myself.



Richard Brown - Mrs. Dalloway, it's you!
Clarissa Vaughan - Yes. Any visitors?
Richard Brown - Yes.
Clarissa Vaughan - Are they still here?
Richard Brown - No, they've gone.
Clarissa Vaughan - Hmmm. How'd they look?
Richard Brown - Today? Sort of like black fire. I mean sort of light and dark at the same time. There was one that looked like an electrified jellyfish. They were singing, may have been Greek.
Clarissa Vaughan - So the ceremony is at five. Do you remember? (sigh) And then, the party, is right after. (laughs) They did bring you breakfast, didn't they?
Richard Brown - What a question. Of course.
Clarissa Vaughan - Richard, you did eat it?
Richard Brown - Well, can you see it? Is it here? Is there any breakfast lying around?
Clarissa Vaughan - No, I can't see it.
Richard Brown - Well then I must have eaten it, mustn't I?
Clarissa Vaughan - I suppose.
Richard Brown - Does it matter?
Clarissa Vaughan - Of course it matters. You know what the doctors say. Have you been skipping pills?
Richard Brown- Clarissa... I can't take this.
Clarissa Vaughan - Take what?
Richard Brown - I want to be proud and brave in front of everybody.
Clarissa Vaughan - Oh, honey, it's not a performance.
Richard Brown - Of course it is. I got the prize for my performance.
Clarissa Vaughan - That's not accept...
Richard Brown - I got the prize for having AIDS and going nuts. Being brave about it. I actually got the prize for having come through.
Clarissa Vaughan - That's not true.
Richard Brown - ...for surviving, that's what I got the prize for.
Clarissa Vaughan - That's not true.
Richard Brown - Oh, you think they would have given it to me if I were healthy?
Clarissa Vaughan - Yes, as a matter of fact I do.
Richard Brown - Is it here somewhere?
Clarissa Vaughan - What?
Richard Brown - The prize, I'd like to look at it.
Clarissa Vaughan - Well, you haven't gotten it yet. It's tonight.
Richard Brown - Are you sure? I remember the ceremony perfectly. I seem to have fallen out of time.
Clarissa Vaughan - Richard... Richard... it's a party. Um, it's only a party, populated entirely by people who respect and admire you.
Richard Brown - Ah, small party is it? Select party is it?
Clarissa Vaughan - ...your friends.
Richard Brown - I thought I lost all my friends. I thought I drove my friends crazy. Oh Mrs. Dalloway, always giving parties.
Clarissa Vaughan - Richard, you won't need to do anything. All you have to do is appear, sit on the sofa, and I will be there. This is a group of people who want to tell you your work is going to live.
Richard Brown - Oh, is it? Is my work going to live? I can't go through with it Clarissa.
Clarissa Vaughan - Well, why do you say that?
Richard Brown - I can't.
Clarissa Vaughan - Why?
Richard Brown - Because I wanted to be a writer, that's all.
Clarissa Vaughan - So?
Richard Brown - I wanted to write about it all, everything that happens in a moment. Way the flowers looked when you carried them in your arms. This towel, how it smells, how it feels, this thread, all our feelings, yours and mine. The history of it. Who we once were, everything in the world, everything all mixed up. Like it's all mixed up now. And I failed. I failed... no matter what you start with, it ends up being so much less... terrifying pride, stupidity. Oh we wanted everything, don't we?
Clarissa Vaughan - I suppose we do.
Richard Brown - You kissed me on a beach.
Clarissa Vaughan - Yeah.
Richard Brown - Do you remember... how many years ago?
Clarissa Vaughan - Of course.
Richard Brown - What did you want then?
Clarissa Vaughan - (looks at ceiling and thinks).
Richard Brown - Come closer.
Clarissa Vaughan - I'm right here.
Richard Brown - Come closer, would you please. Take my hand. Would you be angry if...
Clarissa Vaughan - Would I be angry if you didn't show up at the party?
Richard Brown - Would you be angry if I died?
Clarissa Vaughan - If you died?
Richard Brown - Who is this party for?
Clarissa Vaughan - What do you mean, who's it for? What are you asking? What are you trying to say?
Richard Brown - I'm not trying to say anything. I'm saying I think I'm only staying alive to satisfy you.
Clarissa Vaughan - Well, so that is what we do. That is what people do. They stay alive for each other. The doctors told you, you don't need to die. Told you that, you can live like this for years.
Richard Brown - Well, exactly.
Clarissa Vaughan - I don't accept this. I don't accept what you're saying.
Richard Brown - Oh, and it's for you to decide, is it? How long have you been doing that? How many years cleaning up the apartment. What about your own life? What about Sally? Just wait till I die, then you'll have to think of yourself.
Clarissa Vaughan - Richard, it would be great if you did come to the party, if you felt well enough to come. Just let you know I am making the crab thing, not that I imagine it makes any difference to you.
Richard Brown - Of course it makes a difference, I love the crab thing. Clarissa...
Clarissa Vaughan - Yes?
Richard Brown - (kisses Clarissa)
Clarissa Vaughan - (starts to laugh) I'll be back at 3:30. I'll help you get dressed.
Richard Brown - Wonderful. (smiles at Clarissa).
Clarissa Vaughan - 3:30. (leaves apartment)
Richard Brown - Wonderful.




Laura Brown reading from Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf's voice reading the words) - Did it not matter then, she asked herself, walking toward Bond Street. Did it matter, that she must inevitably cease, completely. All this must go on without her. Did she resent it or did it not become consoling to believe death and absolutely. It is possible to die... it is possible to die.



Julia Vaughan - You've been crying. What's happening?
Clarissa Vaughan - All it is, I looked around this room and I thought I'm giving a party. All I want to do is give a party.
Julia Vaughan - And?
Clarissa Vaughan - I know why he does it, he does it deliberately.
Julia Vaughan - Oh... is this Richard?
Clarissa Vaughan - Of course. He did it this morning. He gives me that look.
Julia Vaughan - What look?
Clarissa Vaughan - To say your life is trivial. You are so trivial. It's just daily stuff, you know schedules and parties and details. That's what he means, by it, that is what he's saying.
Julia Vaughan - Mom, it only matters if you think it's true. Well, do you, tell me.
Clarissa Vaughan - When I am with him, then yes, I am living and when I'm not, yes things do seem sort of silly. I don't mean with you. I, God....I... never with you, all the rest of it.
Julia Vaughan - Sally?
Clarissa Vaughan - The rest of it. If you say to me 'when were you happy...?'
Julia Vaughan - Mom...
Clarissa Vaughan - ...tell me the moment you were happiest...
Julia Vaughan - I know... I know, it was years ago.
Clarissa Vaughan - Yeah.
Julia Vaughan - All you're saying is, you were once young.
Clarissa Vaughan - (smiles and laughs) - I remember one morning, getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself, so this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. (both laugh) Never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning, it was happiness. It was The Moment. Right then.




Leonard Woolf - Perhaps you can tell me just what you think you are doing?
Virginia Woolf - What I was doing? I...
Leonard Woolf - I went to look for you and you weren't there.
Virginia Woolf - You were working in the garden, I didn't wish to disturb you.
Leonard Woolf - You disturb me when you disappear.
Virginia Woolf - I didn't disappear. I went for a walk.
Leonard Woolf - A walk, is that all, just a walk?
Virginia Woolf - (big sigh)
Leonard Woolf - Virginia we must go home now, Nelly is cooking dinner, she's already had a very difficult day. It's just our obligation to eat Nelly's dinner.
Virginia Woolf - There's no such obligation, no such obligation exists.
Leonard Woolf - Virginia you have an obligation to your own sanity.
Virginia Woolf - I've endured this custody. I've endured this impressment.
Leonard Woolf - Oh Virginia!
Virginia Woolf - I am attended by doctors, everywhere I am attended by doctors who inform me of my own interests.
Leonard Woolf - They know your interests.
Virginia Woolf - They do not! They do not speak for my interests.
Leonard Woolf - Virginia I... I can see it must be hard for a woman of your...
Virginia Woolf - What? Of my what...
Leonard Woolf - ...of your talents to see that she may not be the best judge of her own condition.
Virginia Woolf - No? Who then is a better judge?
Leonard Woolf - You have a history. You have a history of confinement. We brought you to Richmond because you have a history of fits, moods, blackouts, hearing voices. We brought you here to save you from the irrevocable damage you intended upon yourself. You tried to kill yourself twice. I live daily with that threat. I set up the press... we set up the printing press not just for itself, not just purely for itself, but so that you might have a ready source of absorption and a remedy..
Virginia Woolf - Like needlework?
Leonard Woolf - It was done for you! It was done for your betterment. It was done out of love! If I didn't know you better, I'd call this ingratitude.
Virginia Woolf - I am ungrateful? You call me ungrateful? My life has been stolen from me. Living in a town I have no wish to live in. I'm living a life I have no wish to live. How did this happen? It is time for us to move back to London. I miss London. I miss London life.
Leonard Woolf - This is not you speaking Virginia. This is an aspect of your illness.
Virginia Woolf - It is my voice. It is mine and mine alone. It is not MINE. I'm dying in this town.
Leonard Woolf - If you were thinking clearly Virginia you will recall it was London that brought you low.
Virginia Woolf - Thinking clearly...
Leonard Woolf - I would report you to Richmond, to give you peace.
Virginia Woolf - If I were thinking clearly Leonard, then I would tell you that I wrestle alone in the dark, in the deep dark and only I can know, only I can understand my own condition. You live with the threat, you tell me you live with the threat of my extinction, Leonard I live with it too. This is my right, 'tis the right of every human being. I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs but the violent jolt of the capital, that is my choice. The meanest patient, yes even the very lowest is allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription. There by she defines her humanity. I wish for your sake Leonard I could be happier in this quietness, but if it is a choice between Richmond and death, I choose death.



To be continued...




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