Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Runtime: 131 minutes

Directed by: Mike Nichols

Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis

From: Warner Bros.

I've never seen a piece of art that better delivers an anti-alcohol message!

It was not even the plan last night to watch this off of a DVR recording I recently made when it played on Turner Classic Movies. Originally I was going to watch something action-oriented made from HDNet Movies. I hit play and after a minute... screen freezes and that was it. I've only had a DVR since May of this year (no, really) & that was my first problem with it, although naturally there are memories of stories told concerning others having issues w/ their device. It is a popular film easy to track down so no worries there. If it had been a rare screening of something on TCM or elsewhere I otherwise couldn't track down-yeah, I'd be peeved, not to mention miffed.

Instead, due to recent praise I finally gave this movie a shot after having known of it for ages. Giving this the highest possible rating was not expected from me but this blew me away. It also made for a nerve-racking two hours plus! I'll explain how that can be the case when this is clearly based on a play (a famous one where everyone from David Harbour and Patrick Stewart to Elaine May and Imelda Staunton has appeared in) & for the most part only features four characters exchanging acres & acres of dialogue. Lead couple George and Martha are an incredibly toxic couple; she is the daughter of a college's president & George happens to be a history professor at said college. The plot takes place during the course of a VERY long night and they returned from a soiree; as a pair of invited guests come over, at first Martha comes across horribly as an incredibly shrill and loud harpy. But soon it is apparent that George is a condescending manipulative A-hole so they are a couple destined for each other despite their constant bickering.

That young couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) suffer from their hosts being agents of chaos and causing problems between them. The way it is shot and the haunting subtle music you sometimes hear helps set a mood that got under my skin, but of course it was all the caustic and biting dialogue which was unrelenting and if I was another party at the house I would have fled rather quickly no matter all the booze I was given! You have to accept the conceit that the guests don't leave themselves much sooner than they did. Indeed, the demon drink exacerbates everyone's problems so if you ever wanted to see a brutally honest reason to put down the bottle... heck, presumably many know that in real life Burton-like many throughout history-have had problems with alcohol.

What a roller coaster ride of emotions this was. Woolf was a rare movie that was nominated for every Academy Award which it was eligible for, winning several including for the performances of Taylor and Dennis-IMO Segal and Burton were just about as good. Also, holy crap at this being the directorial debut of Mike Nichols. It's always a pleasant surprise to view something that was even better than expected-while this may be too stressful to ever view again, it was great as a possible one time only experience. Hopefully this was not a true to life portrayal of the incredibly real life turbulent relationship between Burton & Taylor.