Tom & Viv (1994) is proof that just because a film has amazing costumes, it doesn’t mean it won’t be a tedious heap of melodrama. The title refers to T.S. Eliot, aka “Tom” (played by Willem Dafoe) and Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot, aka “Viv” (played by Miranda Richardson) and their absolute disaster of a 19-year marriage (32 years, if you count the fact that they were technically still married right up until Viv died, even though they hadn’t cohabitated or seen one another in decades).
When the film starts Tom is a virginal 25-year-old wanna be poet, Viv is the Bright Young Things version of a manic pixie dream girl. Tom is super repressed. Viv is beset by a myriad of health issues and suffering with treatment that amounts to “take obscene amounts of opiates and wash it down with alcohol to numb yourself into oblivion.” Neither know how to deal with the other in any remotely healthy way. Tom is immediately grossed out by Viv’s menorrhagia, which seems to be the source of a lot of her problems and would no doubt be diagnosed as Pre-menstrual Dysphoric Disorder today. As someone who suffered with PMDD since my teens, and then had a hysterectomy in my early-40s for menorrhagia, you know I’m on Team Viv here. That shit is not fun and absolutely will make you straight-up, pants-on-head crazy, especially if you’re not in a supportive relationship and live in an era where women’s health is under-researched, misunderstood, and passed off as “all in your head” or “not trying hard enough.” (Whaaat? You mean like now??)
Anyway, back to the film. Tom does that thing that men have done since time immemorial, where he starts to treat her worse and worse, alienating her until she goes full-tilt crazy and then has her institutionalized for the next 20 years of her life until she maybe (probably) commits suicide by overdosing.
I kept asking myself “What story is this film trying tell me?” because I couldn’t seem to let myself believe that the playwright and the screenwriters and the director and the actors all wanted me to just turn the damn thing off because the main characters are so maddeningly tedious — especially Willem Dafoe, who stands in different rooms in various stages of awkwardness. He weakly stands up for Viv to others in one scene, and then treats her like absolute trash in the next. All while looking bored AF.
I had a very lengthy paragraph written about all the ways Miranda Richardson is too good for this film, but then I deleted it. Watch it, then tell me you disagree with me. I’ll just cut to the chase: If this film were only about Bertrand Russel, who is played by the ever-charming Nickolas Grace, it would have been a much better flick.
Ok, enough of my bitching about the acting and script. Let’s talk about the thing we are all really here to talk about — the costumes! They are VERY good. Designer Phoebe De Gaye, who is known for a number of frock flicks we’ve covered, does an incredible job with the early-20th century looks. There’s almost nothing that appears on Miranda Richardson where I wasn’t saying “Ooo, I’d wear that!” So on that note, some of the bangers in this film:
I think this is one of those films where it’s better to just watch it with the sound off. The costumes are amazing, and we should absolutely be celebrating that, even if the characters/subject matter is terrible/a total buzzkill.
Have you seen Tom & Viv (1994)? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
Find this frock flick at:
The blink and you miss it dress/coat reminds me a lot of the ballet and theatre costumes by Natalia Goncharova. They used gold with jewel colours. Simply stunning!
I don’t associate Virginia Woolf with the extravagant clothes shown here. Could it be Lady Ottoline Morrell, played by Roberta Taylor?
No, it’s definitely Virginia in the film.
Oh, goddess, why was I born so late? I would so love to have been around and old to wear the clothes of 1900 to 1930-something,
You could wear them now if you avoid getting too costumey. The dress lines are pretty adaptable, and sooo comfy!
I saw it, and ended up hating Eliot despite loving his poems. It’s accurate as regards her intensive contributions to The Wasteland, which he admitted to, but it elides his own mental health issues. What I found particularly painful was her brother’s betrayals of her in order to maintain his relationship with Eliot, who seems to have been as cold blooded as they come.
Of course, Miranda was incredible, as she always is. Dance with a Stranger is as disturbing as it is because of her remarkable performance (it was her film debut, which is even more amazing). She is, I believe, the only truly accurate Queen Elizabeth (Queenie), and the most terrifying chicken murderer ever depicted on stage or screen. If Tom and Viv doesn’t work, it’s definitely not down to her. I’m not sure how she never became better known, but it’s probably because she turned down dreck like Fatal Attraction.
Given Tom is being played by Mr Willem Dafoe, I’m assuming that Viv married him because she was hoping for at least the occasional weekend with Mister Hyde and that the marriage foundered was because all she ever got was Doctor Jekyll.
SOBER Jekyll at that.
Also, I refuse to take sides in the particular War of the Roses – Tom seems to be a right twit, but Viv is WASTING CHOCOLATE.
Chocolate should be poured down the throat, not the letterbox!