Tom & Viv

Vivienne suffers from headaches, stomach pain and uncontrollable menstruation. Normally upbeat and playful, she experiences wild mood swings and paranoia, sometimes culminating in violent outbursts and overdoses on her medication. Her doctors believe there is a link between her pituitary gland and stomach, diagnosing a form of “moral insanity” which frequently afflicts “young women of special talent.” That is, women of extraordinary intelligence and creativity are supposed to be driven mad by it. They expect the symptoms will only grow worse as she ages and advise Tom to tell her “as little as possible: with a patient like this, it’s important not to burden her with details.”

The markings of tragedy (and my own feminist ire) should be obvious. Vivienne, unusually skilled with puzzles and evidently something of a writer herself (and Tom’s most trusted editor, for a time), is a free spirit who aches for something other than the stifling affluent life she’s always known. Aggressive during their courtship, Viv romanticizes poetry and poverty and wants to do everything she can for Tom, in exchange, I imagine, for his understanding and constant companionship. But, fixated on becoming a proper English gentleman, Tom takes a job at a bank, becomes a Christian, and his gentle concern turns into distant, willful ignorance. It is always clear that Tom and Viv love each other, but neither understands this problem that stands between them and increasingly they have no way to relate to one another.

What really makes this a very good film is Miranda Richardson’s performance as Viv. She’s absolutely enchanting in the first scenes before we realize her problems, and often chilling in her more deranged moments. She handles every shade of mood with unaffected skill, and I was completely drawn into the character’s world. A criminally underrated actress, she was rightfully honored with an Academy Award nomination for this performance.

*possible spoilers*

What was later recognized as hormonal imbalance, “cured” in her lifetime by menopause anyhow, was diagnosed as insanity. And the Victorian solution for misunderstood women is institutionalization. Vivienne was utterly at the mercy of her doctors, her husband and brother, who all knew she was brilliant but were afraid of her “deviance,” and unable to understand (or at least normalize or sedate) her, locked her away for the rest of her life. Given no alternative or information, and entirely devoted to her husband till her dying day, Vivienne eventually acquiesced entirely.

A rather unimportant complaint that annoyed the hell out of me: Joanna McCallum is so not Virginia Woolf here. And Virginia was totally not as rich as she seems to be here in 1919. I want to return to VW’s diaries and letters to see what she actually wrote about Vivienne, because I would hope that as another misunderstood female artist often scorned and dismissed as mad she would have a bit more sympathy for Viv than she appeared to. I’m sure her scathing pen couldn’t resist likening Viv to a ferret, but there has to be some feminist empathy somewhere, hasn’t there?