Orlando (1993)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: Orlando can't match its visual delights with equally hefty narrative -- but it's so much fun to watch that it doesn't need to.
Movie Info
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Cast
as Orlando
as Shelmerdine
as The Kahn
as Sasha
as Nick/Publisher
as Queen Elizabeth I
as Pope
as William of Orange
as Countess
as Mr. Addison
as Falsetto >Angel
as King James I
as Earl of Moray
as Orlando's Mother
as Translator
as Orlando's Father
as 1st Older Woman
as Courtier
as First Butler
as Queen Mary
as 3rd Valet
as Clorinda
as 1st Official
as Mr. Swift
as Harpsichordist
as Euphrosyne
as 2nd Older Woman
as 2nd Valet
as Young French Woman
as Young French Man
as Courtier
as 1st Older Woman
as Favilla
as Russian Sailor
News & Interviews for Orlando
Critic Reviews for Orlando
All Critics (56) | Top Critics (18) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (9)
The film's wit and layered sense of history seem richer than ever.
The good news about this historical vaudeville is that Orlando's consciousness, like his/her gender, is a delightful work-in-progress.
What it lacks in coherence it makes up for in sheer spectacle.
Though visually impressive and assured, it is the hollowest of successes, all chic set design, smug posturing and self-satisfied attitude.
Reminiscent of the low-budget lushness of the early films of Peter Greenaway and Ken Russell, Orlando could turn out to be the art-house smash of the summer.
Potter possesses a natural gracefulness in presentation that helps a little but, finally, not nearly enough. Orlando is vague when she means it to be mysterious, coy when it ought to be witty, familiar when it should be bold.
Audience Reviews for Orlando
Simply put one of the best movies I have ever seen. The cast is amazing and deliver in their performances, the stunning visuals and beautiful music combine to create a dreamy atmosphere through which S. Potter uses Orlando as a medium to make subtle and elegant commentaries about life, the human condition and the struggle of the sexes to understand each other when they are basically two aspects of the same coin. As opposed to some of the other reviewers here I did not find the movie slow or boring at any time. Nor is it just about Orlando; there are multiple layers. It flows simply and quietly but with great intensity and an underlying irony at every moment. This film must be Potter's masterpiece.
Super Reviewer
A young nobleman in the seventeenth century makes a promise to his Queen to never grow old, living on through to the twentieth after undergoing the transformation to womanhood. Based on a story by Virginian Woolf, Orlando is an ambitious attempt to portray gender issues spanning the centuries. Tilda Swinton shares the limelight with some wonderful costumes and locations, appearing just at home in doublet and hoes as a corset and bustle and her central performance is arresting. It's a pity that the rest of the cast don't really get a look in, as the story is represented as a series of all-too-short vignettes where some initially intriguing supporting characters appear briefly but are gone again before there is any chance to explore them or relationship with Orlando. This is a real shame because some of the scenes, especially concerning her receiving the kind of attitudes that she was herself guilty of having when she was a man, had real potential. This is doubly true of Zane's character who is the other side of the coin of Orlando's transformation. It is sometimes guilty of being too "arty" for its own good, the gimmicky casting of Quentin Crisp as Elizabeth I (although it could be argued that he is the perfect choice to play an old queen...) and the appearance of Jimmy Somerville as a golden angel overstep the boundary to campness. It's certainly an interesting and beautifully realised film visually, but Benjamin Button did something similar with a lot more heart.
Super Reviewer
A true forgotten classic. Watching Orlando is heartbreaking because you know they're never going to make another film as bizarre or beautiful as this ever again. Modern Hollywood just wouldn't allow something involving an androgynous immortal, inexplicable gender changes, the breaking of the fourth wall, and a bizarrely evangelical ending to be distributed, let alone created for 5 million dollars. This is art. It doesn't always make sense, but trying to parse it and giving it personal meaning makes the experience completely worthwhile. Kudos to Sally Potter for creating such an uncompromising adaptation of a Virginia Woolf novel. Kudos to Tilda Swinton, who I fall more in love with every day and who has one of the most exciting and diverse filmographies of any living performer today. Kudos to all involved with this striking, unique, powerful innovation.
Super Reviewer
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