Carrington starring Emma Thompson, Jonathan Pryce, Rufus Sewell and Alex Kingston.  1995.

“I love you….but I can’t sleep with you.” A wonderful film about the artist Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson) and her relationship with the author Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce), this film is humorous, intelligent, thought provoking and one of my faves. Set in the English countryside during World War I the film explores their unlikely friendship, the role (or lack of) of the upper classes during the war and Dora’s numerous unsuccessful love affairs…as their life is unravelled we gain a glimpse of their artistry and the work that made them famous.

Maybe they’re not that famous because I had heard nothing about Dora & Lytton before watching the film and you may not have heard of them either, but that really isn’t necessary to enjoy this. Jonathan Pryce is such a talented actor and he has some really funny lines, Rufus Sewell (Dark City) is present as one of Carrington’s lovers, Alex Kingston (Dr Corday from ER, River Song in Doctor Who) plays the lover of Dora’s lover. The film is 15 years old but seems to be frozen in its own time capsule; Alex Kingston and Emma Thompson look much younger and different to how you have seen them before on screen.  They are classic and elegant.

If you watch this film you may think I’m rather naive to rave about how well the film looks in terms of period, costume and set but I’m not so naive as to believe you will like Carrington as much as I do – it has one of the best endings a film could have.