If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is a feminine well-educated young man. It's 1600. The elderly Queen Elizabeth takes on Orlando as her mascot. She bestows on him land, money and a castle on one condition. Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old. He falls for Moscovite Ambassador's daughter Sasha Menchikova leaving his engagement to Lady Euphrosyne. Sasha leaves him and breaks his heart. He pays poet Greene who then ridicules his poetry. It's 1700. He is sent to Constantinople as British ambassador. He is changed into a woman. It's 1750. Lady Orlando loses her property since a woman has no ownership rights to the land. She rejects a proposal from Archduke Harry. It's 1850. She falls for Shelmerdine. The lawsuits are settled and she can only keep the land if she has a male heir. It's the modern era. She has a daughter and has written a book.Tilda Swinton has a gender bending role and has the androgynous presence to do it. She does an amazing job taking on this role. The movie should probably be a lot more surreal. It's stuck somewhere in the middle. There is a perfunctory nature to this film. She wakes up one morning and finds that herself a woman. It could be read as she was always a woman pretending to be a man. Some sort of transformation needs to be seen or Orlando needs some more declarative speech. Also spanning so much time leaves very little space for each section. The movie feels shallow hinting at a much deeper source material.

It. The humanity. In the first case I did not like his outlook and in the second, I did not like her name. Otherwise brilliant play.Playful, interesting, my first of this kind and with very good sound-track. Very good historical retrospective told in its cultural context also. Kingdom with a queen, society of men, poetry, science, adventures, future, windy job, time for conscious choice.High level of abstractness that gets down to the contemporary viewer through different big talks. With the purpose to show him what he looked like, what he is now and to be asked what he wants to be for now on. Historical load showed to us as being left aside the road. Not forgotten. One of the possible ones but came real.More social concepts in the rubric "it happened like this". Again, interesting, moving. Lovely surprise and amusement.http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/

Tilda Swinton as a man does require a certain denial. She is female lets not deny it. She is not the epitome of femininity but that is not a detraction from the person she portrays. She is plain but from start to finish she is not asexual far from it. She is rounded in her portrayal of Orlando except in the minor aspect of the deficiency in anger that is found in many men or to be more precise the denial of their expectations and acceptance of the reality with which they are met.However, his/her characters adaptability and acceptance of reality despite the negatives of choosing a such a crippled sex in that age is what defines her inherent female persona from start to finish.Quentin Crisp knowing his personal history is the epitome of queen and Billy Zanes acceptance of Orlando for the person that he/she is shows that his nature while that of a hero does not typify a gender pre-requisite stereotype.This is a beautifully rendered film with a delicate touch and attention to detail not just of England's mini ice age but of a richer tapestry that skates just above below the ice.When watching it you are scared to intrude as everything feels so fragile however the warmth, endurance and re-creation of Orlando as a life affirming force of nature is what makes this experience so robust. If anything it says that gender is not the issue but the the will of the individual to move forward in life despite the illusions and obstacles that society presents as the norm.If I have any negative comments on the movie is that it should have been longer and filled in the gaps that were obvious in the life of anyone who is over 400 years old as it fails to emphasize the tearing and pain that such inherent change entails.

Woolf's novel, Orlando is witty, clever, funny and has a remarkable evenness of tone and writing skill - certainly for her. It is a work of an artist in possession of their craft.This film version of that book has none of those qualities and while it is excellently designed and shot on a modest budget it lacks intelligence, wit and purpose: it is a pop music video. It is all surface and eye candy an Winton's performance incarnates that gloss. While she has a fine face, she is overtly wooden.But worse than that it has a smug and ever so cool media studies artiness as it breaks the frame to address the viewer. The film version is like a tier 3 university course called Feminist Poetics and Male Narratives...the mediocrity of its cinema realization is much to clear.