A brilliant adaptation of the award-winning novel. The
story of Virginia Woolf's struggle to write Mrs. Dalloway and with her
own sanity is reflected in the lives of two women a generation apart,
in the 1950s and today, whose lives finally cross.
Structural Analysis
Hook
Virginia writes her suicide note and walks into the river.
Complication
20 years earlier, she is struggling to begin a book and not
eating, not being a "good patient" for her husband.
Call to Action
She decides what her book is about: a woman's life in a single
day. This gets reflected in the lives of the two women a generation apart.
Act One Plot Point
Virginia is cooking, her muse active. Mrs. Dalloway must die.
Midpoint Plot Point
Virginia rebels against her care-givers, including her husband.
Her sanity is her own business. Mrs. Dalloway will not die. The 1950s
woman can't go through with her suicide.
Act Two Plot Point
A poet with AIDS dies (the son of the 1950s woman, the soul mate
of the present day lesbian). Virginia decides it is the poet who must
die, the visionary -- herself.
Climax and Resolution
The two women choose life. Virginia (the poet must die) walks
into the river.
Notes
This is one story, the story of an emotional journey through life by
three women of three different generations, all asking the same questions
about their lives and their deaths. From this perspective, the dramatic
structure is seen to be tight and traditional (beginning-middle-end
storytelling), great testimony to the power of 3-act structure.
MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting