Review of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) by Alan B — 15 Nov 2007

Finally got to see this on dvd in the States (it's not available in Region 2), after having seen and liked 3 of Albee's plays, including Woolf? in London with a well-cast Kathleen Turner. The movie is fantastic: pretty faithful to the play; inevitably it opens up the action to make it seem less 'stagey', to fairly inconsequential effect.

The casting of Burton/Tayler is juicy but they dispel any suspicions of stunt-casting by being rivetting. This seems to be about a lot of things, but in the film the really compelling aspect is the ruthless dramatisation of their marriage, or perhaps marriage as such, as they knock seven bells out of each other emotionally and physically; and seem to enjoy it, before the intellectual sparring which seems to bind them tips over to a point where they have face the truth about each other, for better or worse.

I love this kinda stuff! Has some similarities with the Marber play 'Closer' (also brilliant), which Nichols adapted also, as well as Woolf.