‘Carrington’ By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer November 17, 1995

Director: Christopher Hampton Cast: Emma Thompson; Jonathan Pryce; Steven Waddington; Rufus Sewell; Samuel West; Penelope Wilton nudity, sexual situations, profanity and minor violence Compare prices for this movie Find local video stores More movie shopping Save money with NextCard Visa

Painter Dora Carrington was a vigorous, outgoing artist in her twenties. Lytton Strachey, 35, was a frail, bearded man of letters and a homosexual. As World War I rumbled in the background, they started a platonic affair that lasted 17 years. That Strachey was viscerally disgusted at the female form, and that Carrington was married and had affairs with other men, seemed immaterial.

Christopher Hampton's delightful, ultimately saddening "Carrington," starring Emma Thompson (as Carrington) and Jonathan Pryce (Strachey), shows how this strange bond survived despite their sexual incompatibility, a string of male lovers (for both parties) and the general disapproval of British society. The movie, which Hampton adapted from Michael Holroyd's biography, "Lytton Strachey," feels a trifle overextended. After a time, one lover's interlude seems to run blurringly into another. But the movie's stirring throughout, thanks to Pryce and Thompson's odd-yet-perfect match—as actors and characters.

"Carrington" starts provocatively. Strachey, visiting the home of artist Vanessa Bell (Janet McTeer), sees a strapping, apparently male figure that stirs him with lust. But when he's introduced to Dora Carrington, the object of his affections, he realizes he has fallen for a woman.

The two of them face each other in a marvelous scene of embarrassing silence. Carrington stares sullenly away. Strachey wanders reflexively to a shelf full of books. It's the last time words fail them. Tumbling into love with each other, they tread a complicated path road-blocked by the smitten agendas of artist Mark Gertler (Rufus Sewell), military man and Carrington husband Ralph Partridge (Steven Waddington), poet Gerald Brennan (Samuel West), and others.

Pryce—who starred in "Brazil," was the Engineer in Broadway's "Miss Saigon," but unfortunately is best known as the suave spokesman for Infiniti car commercials—gives a magnificent performance. His fey eye rollings, soft-voiced retorts and delicate mannerisms convey Strachey's wonderful sense of irony but avoid the pit of caricature. Early in the movie, when he appeals before a conscription tribunal to declare his conscientious objector status, he places a blanket over the back of his chair, a package of papers on the floor, and a doughnut-shaped, pneumatic tube in his seat.

"I'm a martyr to the piles," he explains to the curious war panel.

Thompson breaks through her wholesome image wonderfully. She's an intriguing mixture of innocence and impulsiveness.

In artist biographies, bitterness often attends the final curtain. But as Strachey and Carrington head inexorably toward their respective fates, they do not go unwittily into that good night.

"Carrington" may be a downward course, but it's worth it for the central partnership: Strachey and Carrington traipsing hand-in-hand towards that familiar English doom (rose gardens, societal estrangement, despair), exchanging a wonderful badminton of bons mots all the way.

CARRINGTON (R) — Contains nudity, sexual situations, profanity and minor violence.

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