Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Mischa Redfern I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Framescourer Unlike this film adaptation of Michael Hastings' play, there was nothing straightforward about the characters that populate Tom & Viv. Well, with the honourable exception of Tim Dutton's Maurice. The cast of characters are all exceptional, constituting the creative exoticism of the 1920s. Inevitably this means the Bloomsbury Group, though the film is modest in its examination of those personalities themselves, using Ottoline Morrell, Virginia Woolf and Edith Sitwell et al as a backdrop & foil for the highly strung Vivienne Eliot, rather than out- and-out antagonists.It is Vivienne about whom this film rotates. She appears to be the life force that drives Tom Eliot on in his decisions and actions, if only through her spasmodic mood swings. It's a very difficult role for Miranda Richardson (who is excellent, perfectly cast) to grade; we need a sense of escalation but also to see that her post-menopausal self is significantly different from how she was before Tom. The result is a rich portrayal, dizzying and distracting from the couple's real dynamic. As a narrative I'm sure it's accurate. As drama it's less satisfying.Willem Dafoe is a nicely taciturn Eliot, with the same strong features as the poet, if not an obvious lookalike. The attention to design detail, especially in costume is quite excellent. Recommended as a broad-brush primer for this important period in TS Eliot's professional development. 6/10

bkoganbing The late American humorist Jean Shepherd once remarked that he admired T.S. Eliot, that you had to admire a man who would use those two initials his parents gave him as his name. It was like he was making a statement to the world.He was no Emily Dickinson, he got acclaim for his poetry during his life, but I'm sure back in 1915 when this story starts Eliot didn't want fame or sought it. He wanted to teach, to write, and toward that end he found both his muse and love of his life.And that's the person that Willem Dafoe is showing us when Tom & Viv starts. He's an eager, young scholar of no particular repute who is in love with Miranda Richardson as Vivienne Haigh-Wood. Father Philip Locke figures he's a fortune hunter, brother Tim Dutton likes him and they become close and mother Rosemary Harris is grateful that someone is taking her off their hands.But they don't tell young Eliot about Vivienne's mental problems which grow more pronounced with age. Richardson earns Dafoe's love, inspires his poetry and tries his patience beyond measure. In the end she's put away in an asylum.The real kicker though is a scene with an American doctor during the closing part of World War II when it is discovered that her problems could now have been treated medically. The doctors had it all wrong with her, but only recent advances in science have shown the error of their ways. By that time it's way too late for either Tom or Viv.Tom & Viv got two Oscar nominations for Miranda Richardson for Best Actress and Rosemary Harris for Best Supporting Actress. Richardson is really fascinating to watch, a woman in the grip of something she cannot comprehend, but neither can anyone else. She lost to Jessica Lange for Blue Sky. As for Harris, her final scene with Dafoe is what probably got her the nomination. She succeeds on so many levels, understanding her daughter, understanding why the marriage went bad, but still hurt at Dafoe's betrayal of her daughter. Harris lost to Dianne Wiest for Bullets Over Broadway.Tom & Viv succeeds well in capturing the Great Britain of the two World Wars and the period between. The characters are sharply drawn and quite unforgettable in their way. Especially Richardson, this may wind up as her career role as an actress.

dlmorgan Was she mentally ill or was she suffering from hormonal imbalances not unlike post-menstrual syndrome? The fact that she was bleeding 3 times a month and had erratic behavior certainly alludes to something other that mental illness. When the American doctor came to the institution to see her, he said that her condition could have been controlled with medication. I realize that the times did not allow her illness to be analyzed or researched -- women were really of no interest other than being an extension of their husbands. However, I think that knowing what we do now -- and because as she got older her outbreaks lessened -- it seems that this was not a case of a "crazy" person's rantings. She was merely a woman who was indeed outspoken and had a mind of her own and also suffered from depression brought on by PMS.

LarryB This film demonstrates how easily the state uses the psychiatric profession to unjustly incarcerate citizens, with full permission of family members, and eventually the victim themselves.The scene of the "mind police" taking Viv (Miranda Richardson) out of a restaurant in broad daylight, and her struggle that ends with pushing her purse into the hands of a friend as she is brought into submission, is heart-wrenching.