Clarissa Premieres at Cannes, Recasting Mrs. Dalloway in Present-Day Lagos
Updated
Updated · Hollywood Reporter · May 16
Clarissa Premieres at Cannes, Recasting Mrs. Dalloway in Present-Day Lagos
7 articles · Updated · Hollywood Reporter · May 16
Directors’ Fortnight unveiled “Clarissa,” a 2-hour-7-minute adaptation of “Mrs. Dalloway” that shifts Virginia Woolf’s story from 1920s London to contemporary Lagos.
Arie and Chuko Esiri use fragmented memory, 35mm cinematography and a stream-of-consciousness structure to map Clarissa’s party preparations against a wider portrait of class, politics and urban life in Nigeria.
Sophie Okonedo plays the Lagos society hostess, while Fortune Nwafor’s Septimus becomes a veteran returning from the Boko Haram conflict, reframing Woolf’s critique of how states abandon damaged soldiers.
Flashbacks to 1994 and debates over democracy, literature and desire give the film a distinctly Nigerian political and postcolonial lens, with the review calling it a compelling and slyly revisionist interpretation.
Does adapting a British classic empower Nigerian storytellers or reinforce a colonial cultural legacy?
Can a Lagos high-society party truly reflect the trauma of Nigeria's ongoing war on terror?