Why can't a man be more like a woman? He can, if he truly puts his mind to the task and has four hundred years or so in which to achieve the miracle. That's what we're led to believe in this gorgeous, exhilarating interpretation of Virginia Woolf's 1928 gender-bending novel. For those unacquainted with the subversive masterpiece (inspired by the bisexual author's obsession with haughty but hotsy Vita Sackville-West), the story depicts the anatomy-be-damned sex switch of the poignantly restless Orlando, from naive Elizabethan nobleman to take-charge contemporary single mom (with crucial battlefield and boudoir stopovers in the centuries between).
Too tricky for your taste? You won't say that once you've savored the exquisite imagery, witty dialogue, and audaciously erotic set pieces devised with such impeccable passion by Sally Potter, a writer-director whose name instantly ascends to the top of the list of mega-promising filmmakers. And there's no way you can fail to be stunned by Tilda Swinton in the title role. Tremulous, soulful, bruised, invincible, she sends us reeling with reminders of Garbo. Like the mysterious Swede at her peak, this bewitching Brit of the nineties projects a delicate fusion of joy and sadness, tantalizes with hints of exotic androgyny.
Indeed, it's easy to imagine Garbo - who donned britches with panache in Queen Christina - playing a would-be warrior so traumatized by the prospect of carnage that he descends into a deep sleep and wakes, five days later, as an enchanting woman. One can almost hear her announcing the verdict on her altered state: "Same person, no difference at all. Only the sex." But Garbo's delivery of those lines could have been no more delicious than Swinton's. Still, there is a notable distinction to be made between these screen queens, past and present: It's impossible to picture The Shy One playing the scene with Swinton's full-frontal-nude aplomb.
Nor would Garbo have tumbled about with John Gilbert in the shamelessly libidinal fashion favored by Swinton and Billy Zane, cast as the thick-lashed, more-beautiful-than-handsome swain who, during a sizzly eighteenth-century interlude, impregnates Orlando and more or less proposes marriage, thus paving the way for her to claim a sizable inheritance. Who's her benefactor? More to the point, who cares? The anarchic plot here is but a springboard for Potter's soaring cinemagination. You'll be swept away by the movie's sumptuous look and feel; captivated by its sharp, sparkling reflections on love, honor, art, and lust; intrigued by its impudent scrutiny of the part gender plays in the shaping of our destinies. And you'll applaud the extraordinary performers, ranging from newcomer Swinton to eighty-three-year-old cross-dresser Quentin Crisp, who proves to be a jewel of a scene-stealer as the madly majestic Queen Elizabeth I.
Who says there are no suitable roles for women out there?