It's hard for me to accept a film as perfect. This is partly because of IMDb the movie ranked highest on the Top 250 list ('The Godfather') has a mere 9.0, meaning there is ten points worth of things wrong with even the best film ever made. What IMDb voters fail to realize is that if a movie has an intention a purpose and it serves that purpose effortlessly and hits every note that it's supposed to hit without even the remotest hint of an off key, it is perfect by its own right, and therefore worthy of a ten out of ten. 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' is one of those movies.
The plot is ecstatically simple: a troubled married couple (Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) has a younger and we assume happier couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) over late at night for quick drinks. The reason for the get together is that Martha's (Taylor) father runs the university where George (Burton) and Nick (Segal) work, and the father told them to 'be nice' to the younger couple, so Martha invited them over for a late party. Like I said, the plot is simple, but the characters are so deep and complex it'd take a whole lot more than 1,000 words to describe them correctly (but I'll try with what I got).
The film starts with George and Martha coming home from a late party. Both are drunk (Martha is a loud and obnoxious drunk but George just has a headache) and Martha constantly berates George when he fails to come up with the name of the Bette Davis movie she's thinking of (and dozens other reasons). It's early in the movie so we don't know if her insults are for real or if they're just a way of being playful with her husband. George acts to stone faced that we can't tell if he's being hurt or played with.
It's when Nick and Honey (Sandy Dennis) come over that we get to really see how George feels. Martha insults him, calls him names, yells at him while Nick and Sandy look on, baffled as to whether they should laugh or not. As the insults keep on coming George's anger and hurt grow, and the tensions reach a high when he takes a rifle from the closet, points it at Martha and fires. But surprise! It's just a toy with an umbrella that shoots out of the barrel.
As the movie goes on the characters get drunker, angrier and some painful secrets are revealed, and the actors never lose focus. Burton is sort of disintegrating in front of our eyes, both physically and emotionally, from the drink and his wife. He starts off rigid and unbreakable but soon turns cruel and sadistic, while still keeping his sort of suave, charming personality.
Taylor won an Oscar for playing Martha, and it was an Oscar well deserved. At the beginning she looks like the most vile, unlikable character, but as thick layers are torn away we get to see the hurt and pain her character feels from years of berating George. She loves him, she says, but she doesn't deserve him because of how horrible she is. She doesn't want to be happy, but she does at the same time. We feel for this woman because she is a person, not a caricature of a drunken wife.
From when we first see him we know that there is more to Nick than meets the eye. He seems, in a way, sort of ashamed and embarrassed of his goofy wife, and doesn't put up much of a fight when Martha makes advances on him right in front of Honey's eyes. Of course, he's not just the clichéd hotshot character of so many movies either. He has an agenda he feels he needs to use to further his career, but he doesn't like using it. He says early that he doesn't like to get involved in other's problems, and gets increasingly awkward and uncomfortable as the movie progresses. Nick also thinks he's the only sane one in the whole house, even insulting his own wife.
Sandy Dennis' Honey seems like the smallest character of the film, but her work is in the background. Watch the movie twice, and focus only on her the second time. She reacts; she is always the character who's reacting, never in control. And she has the hard task of acting like a drunken moron for the majority of the film, a task that she excels at. But she only appears as an idiot, she knows what's going on around her but she denies it and tries to act like a playful child to rid herself of the horribleness that's happening. None of this is spoken, of course, but we see it in her face. She won her Oscar for the movie too, and deserved it.
This is a horrifying film of the dangers of the lies we tell ourselves (with other themes, too, like alcoholism and marriage). It is a perfect film. Few have reached this equality of tragedy, drama, suspense and dark comedy. A recommendation to all, no one could turn away this film.
10/10.
The plot is ecstatically simple: a troubled married couple (Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) has a younger and we assume happier couple (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) over late at night for quick drinks. The reason for the get together is that Martha's (Taylor) father runs the university where George (Burton) and Nick (Segal) work, and the father told them to 'be nice' to the younger couple, so Martha invited them over for a late party. Like I said, the plot is simple, but the characters are so deep and complex it'd take a whole lot more than 1,000 words to describe them correctly (but I'll try with what I got).
The film starts with George and Martha coming home from a late party. Both are drunk (Martha is a loud and obnoxious drunk but George just has a headache) and Martha constantly berates George when he fails to come up with the name of the Bette Davis movie she's thinking of (and dozens other reasons). It's early in the movie so we don't know if her insults are for real or if they're just a way of being playful with her husband. George acts to stone faced that we can't tell if he's being hurt or played with.
It's when Nick and Honey (Sandy Dennis) come over that we get to really see how George feels. Martha insults him, calls him names, yells at him while Nick and Sandy look on, baffled as to whether they should laugh or not. As the insults keep on coming George's anger and hurt grow, and the tensions reach a high when he takes a rifle from the closet, points it at Martha and fires. But surprise! It's just a toy with an umbrella that shoots out of the barrel.
As the movie goes on the characters get drunker, angrier and some painful secrets are revealed, and the actors never lose focus. Burton is sort of disintegrating in front of our eyes, both physically and emotionally, from the drink and his wife. He starts off rigid and unbreakable but soon turns cruel and sadistic, while still keeping his sort of suave, charming personality.
Taylor won an Oscar for playing Martha, and it was an Oscar well deserved. At the beginning she looks like the most vile, unlikable character, but as thick layers are torn away we get to see the hurt and pain her character feels from years of berating George. She loves him, she says, but she doesn't deserve him because of how horrible she is. She doesn't want to be happy, but she does at the same time. We feel for this woman because she is a person, not a caricature of a drunken wife.
From when we first see him we know that there is more to Nick than meets the eye. He seems, in a way, sort of ashamed and embarrassed of his goofy wife, and doesn't put up much of a fight when Martha makes advances on him right in front of Honey's eyes. Of course, he's not just the clichéd hotshot character of so many movies either. He has an agenda he feels he needs to use to further his career, but he doesn't like using it. He says early that he doesn't like to get involved in other's problems, and gets increasingly awkward and uncomfortable as the movie progresses. Nick also thinks he's the only sane one in the whole house, even insulting his own wife.
Sandy Dennis' Honey seems like the smallest character of the film, but her work is in the background. Watch the movie twice, and focus only on her the second time. She reacts; she is always the character who's reacting, never in control. And she has the hard task of acting like a drunken moron for the majority of the film, a task that she excels at. But she only appears as an idiot, she knows what's going on around her but she denies it and tries to act like a playful child to rid herself of the horribleness that's happening. None of this is spoken, of course, but we see it in her face. She won her Oscar for the movie too, and deserved it.
This is a horrifying film of the dangers of the lies we tell ourselves (with other themes, too, like alcoholism and marriage). It is a perfect film. Few have reached this equality of tragedy, drama, suspense and dark comedy. A recommendation to all, no one could turn away this film.
10/10.