At The Movies Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Not the filmmakers behind "Mrs. Dalloway." DAVID ELLIOTT Special to The Jewish News M rs. Dalloway, playing this weekend at the DIA's Detroit Film Theatre, comes near to perfection in filming Virginia Woolf's novel— close enough to possibly start a spree of Woolf films, to follow the boomlets for E.M. Forster, Henry James and Jane Austen. Vanessa Redgrave was not afraid of Virginia Woolf, nor was director Marleen Gorris nor adapter Eileen Atkins (who did a play on Woolf with Redgrave). Nor should any viewer be, even if you have not read the book. Superbly planted in the London of the early 1920s, in a Britain still dazed from World War I yet trying to pre- tend that comfortable, pre-war cer- tainties endure, Mrs. Dalloway is a period piece-plus. The plus is the almost seamless web of feelings, maybe the best in this line of stitchery since John Huston filmed Joyce's The Dead. Redgrave is, of course, Mrs. Dalloway, married to Richard (John Stanley), a much-liked political figure without a killer instinct for power. He's a decent, loyal man, who matures into genteel wisdom. Clarissa Dalloway, being of the upper crust irreversibly, and scared of bold living, opted for a life of safe anchorage in family and society. She radiates at her parties, where she is the perfect hostess. Now into serious aging, but lovely in the Redgrave manner — this infal- lible performer very rarely falls into a glazed stance of Great Lady of Acting — Clarissa suffers a nibbling soul cri- sis. As she frets about another party, another dream of "a wonderful evening," her past nags her, and her ruminating inner self (heard in voice- overs) takes us back to her Victorian youth. Then, she was a queen of hearts far before Diana, and is acted by garden- fresh Natascha McElhone, more robustly boned than Redgrave, but close enough. She is courted by the emotional Peter (Alan Cox), who 3/27 1998 100 wants her to join him in an adventur- ous life abroad. She holds back. All the warmth she feels for him, for his boyish sulks and headlong desire, can- not overcome her need for assurance (Is she shallow? Almost, but not real- ly). Clarissa falls into the orbit of Richard Dalloway, who is handsome, rich, moving on a level path to high station, but not glory. Only with her life-keen, "radical" friend Sally (Lena Headey) can Clarissa let some of her hair down. Her most sensual memory is of Sally's impetuous kiss, less a bond than a spark, with unspoken implica- tions. Intercutting the two periods and sets of actors, in a London of lawns and luxury, the story includes a streak of pain: the war veteran Septimus, played as a man falling apart by Rupert Graves. Suffering "delayed shell shock" (the diagnosis comes from bluff, honest Robert Hardy as Dr. Bradshaw), supported by his desperate Italian wife (Amelia Bullmore), Septimus is the ruined chalice of all quite a film. Mrs. Dalloway, all English all the time, is a movie not just for nostalgia or display, but a film that plumbs its heart in searching increments. It cherishes the creamy crust of a fading, partly false civilization, while nudging in bits that verge on satire. The classy speech and manners dis- tantly murmur of Monty Pythons to come. But there is more affection here, even for some of the stuffy fools. Michael Kitchen is so very fine as the aging, still emotionally churning Peter, back from India, not a success, embroiled in an affair. He must come to the party for a reckoning of sorts, to see that Clarissa was never his to have, yet feels love for him and that he is still haunted by her beyond all refuge of reason or regret. The film was directed (Gorris), adapted (Atkins), photographed (Sue Gibson) and music-fitted (Ilona Sekacz) by women, but its smart femi- nism remains embedded in the time of the story. Gorris puts her actors in the right rooms and costumes, and beyond that she knows how to let moments build, and lines sting the air and silences resound. She only bungles at a party cli- max of rushed feelings, with too many ramming close-ups. It's odd, as if a Sergio Leone Western had ambushed her taste. That aberration aside, based on very real art, and loyal to it, Mrs. Dalloway does not moon after movie artistry. Its high craft, surely employed, serves the art of Virginia Woolf. About time. Rated PG-13. **** Vanessa Redgrave stars as Ckirissa Dalloway in "Mrs. Dalloway." O 4% *. lirit the young Englishmen who found hell in the war. Now they do not fit in back home, not in the Dalloway world. The wispy lines of story weave into 0 Didi Conn: "Hopelessly Devoted" to "Grease. ALAN ABRAMS Special to the Jewish News T he almost-musical lilt of her Brooklyn inflections makes actress Didi Conn's voice one of the most recognizable in show business. Those unmistakable vocal sounds wafted toward me over a -----` table at Detroit's Opus One earlier this month. What was Conn doing in Motown? She was out promoting Paramount Pictures' rerelease of a new and improved 20th anniversary edition of Grease, which opens in theaters today and in which Conn portrays Frenchy, the "Beauty School Dropout." ____/ Although Grease is a staple of cable '--\ and video rentals, Conn is not surprised to see the film rereleased to theaters. "No one has seen the movie once or twice, they've seen it 50 times on the average," said Conn. 'And this new gen- eration that has only seen it on video is going to go' berserk. They're going to be so excited." A new video version also will be released featuring interviews with cast members and behind-the-scenes players. And by an amazing Hollywood coincidence, Frenchy's 'Grease' Scrapbook (Hyperion), Conn's first book, hits the stores as well. Conn got the idea for the book thanks to her mother, Beverly Shmerling, the per- forming arts director of the Atlanta Jewish Community Center who spent a lot of time on the Grease set taking photographs. The book is a virtual yearbook for the film's fictional Rydell High School, said Conn. Among the great Grease triv- ia items accumulated by Conn are such tidbits as: * Henry Winkler and Susan Dey were offered the leading roles before John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. * The film was titled Brilliantina in Italy and Vaselina in Mexico. * The cast chewed 100,000 pieces of bubble gum in 53 days of shooting. In the book, Conn speculates on Alan Abrams is a Toledo-based free- lance writer.