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The ending, which as them tenderly resigned to one another despite all that bickering and fighting (and bottle breaking, and choking!), is powerful nonetheless. While it's a symbol of an unrealized dream they share, just as Burton's failure to advance in the hierarchy at the college is, to me this is a weakness in the original play. It loses a teeny bit of momentum towards the middle, and I have to say, the story behind their child, whose apparent death seems to be an explanation for why they've gone a bit kooky, but who has been an imaginary child all along, does not ring true, at least in the emotions it evokes out of each of them. When he goes out for the rifle in the garage as Taylor is telling an embarrassing story about him and returns with it, we feel serious tension, and I thought first-time director Mike Nichols did a great job here and throughout the movie. Burton is also fantastic, trying to remain intellectual and appear above it all, but displaying a frustrated rage within and constantly needling all the three of the other characters. I was also reminded of the power in some of Jennifer Lawrence's recent performances as I watched her, but Taylor takes it to another level.
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She is absolutely exceptional, and was worthy of the Academy Award she received. Images of the SNL sketch from a decade later may come to your mind as she munches on a chicken leg and then carelessly tosses the bone back on the plate in the fridge. Taylor in particular really put herself out there, because let's face it, putting on weight and acting like a loud, cheap, bully is far more dangerous for a woman than it is for a man. However, the performances are explosive and 'larger than life'.
#Whos afraid of virginia woolf script analysis movie#
The movie is minimalistic in the sense that it only has these four major characters, two extremely minor characters (who briefly appear when they visit a roadside bar), and it all takes place in a single night, mostly in their home. Humiliation, flirting with the opposite sex, telling stories and confusing "truth and illusion" to play mind games with the other are the order of the day, and the two serve it up again and again in ways which may make your jaw drop. The script and Taylor and Burton's performances are outstanding. The first scene which lasts something like 50 minutes and has a younger professor and his wife (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) coming over to drinks is absolutely stunning.
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The two play a college history professor and his wife, who is also the dean's daughter, and we quickly come to know that they are (a) very unhappy and frustrated with one another, (b) highly blunt and sarcastic in expressing this, and (c) functioning alcoholics. And thus begins 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'. The second the action starts, when Liz Taylor flicks on the light and we begin hearing her talk with Richard Burton, we know all is definitely not right. They're arm-in-arm and seemingly all is quiet and right with the world. As this black and white film opens and the credits are rolling, we see a couple leaving a party and walking slowly back to their house.