Virginia Woolf's Night & Day (12A)
Cast: Jennifer Saunders, Elyas M'Barek, Haley Bennett, Lily Allen, Timothy Spall, Jack WhitehallGenre: Drama
Author(s): Justine Waddell
Director: Tina Gharavi
Release Date: 19/06/2026 (selected cinemas)
Running Time: 95mins
Country: UK/Ger/US
Year: 2026
Astronomer Katharine Hilbery is determined to further her scholarly ambitions at the University of Cambridge but the application requires a sponsor. Her father won't oblige. Begrudgingly acknowledging she may need to marry to further her ambitions, Katharine accepts a wedding proposal from sweet-natured poet friend William Rodney and establishes a make-shift laboratory at a suffragette printing press run by women's rights activist Mary Datchet.
LondonNet Film Review
Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day (12A) Film Review from LondonNet
Rigid societal expectations of early 20th-century London threaten to extinguish the inner light of a headstrong young woman in director Tina Gharavi’s handsome adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel. Written for the screen by Justine Waddell, Night & Day looks to the stars in the company of a spirited and self-taught astronomer, who repeatedly clashes with an academic fraternity that actively dissuades women from challenging the status quo…
Katharine Hilbery (Haley Bennett) is determined to further her scholarly ambitions at the University of Cambridge but the application requires a sponsor. Her father (Timothy Spall) won’t oblige. He believes a woman’s place is tending the house and he encourages Katharine’s sweet-natured poet friend William Rodney (Jack Whitehall) to propose to his daughter. “Women are at their kindest when they are engaged,” chuckles the patriarch to himself. Katharine rejects William’s advances and dresses as a man to attend a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society with her cousin Cyril (Misia Butler). The male-only membership votes overwhelmingly against women joining the fold.
Katharine begrudgingly acknowledges she may need to marry to further her ambitions so she accepts William’s proposal and establishes a make-shift laboratory at a suffragette printing press run by women’s rights activist Mary Datchet (Lily Allen). The planets appear to align, then Mr Hilbery hires writer Ralph Denham (Elyas M’Barek) to edit the hulking 600-page manuscript written by his wife (Jennifer Saunders) to honour her poet father. The one thing that Katharine cannot rationalise as a mathematical formula – her fluttering heart’s desire – is a black hole that could swallow her dreams.
Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day is a measured call to arms for female empowerment, peppered with affecting directorial flourishes. When Katharine issues a primal scream of frustration in the confines of her room, the screen cuts to an exploding star. A chase on four wheels through cobbled streets quickens the pulse thanks to the brisk editing of Hansjorg Weissbrich and Ben Wilson. Bennett is a supernova of steely determination, raging against the patriarchy with an impressive English accent. She refuses to heed the warnings of scientific trailblazers such as Lady Margaret Huggins (Frances Barber), who publish under their husband’s name rather than have no voice at all. Whitehall is sweetly endearing and he provides a steady trickle of comic relief, reflecting at one point the perils of penning poetry about a mallard (“Fortunately, quite a bit rhymes with duck!”)
Composer Simon Goff’s synth-laden score is hauntingly effective and pleasingly anachronistic, almost as out of step with the era as Katharine herself. “We are born in the wrong century,” Cyril heavy-handedly informs his cousin. Scenes of homophobic abuse double down on the injustices of Edwardian England. In a little over a century, not much has changed.
– Sarah Lee
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UK and Irish Cinemas Showing Virginia Woolf's Night & Day
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Little Theatre Cinema Picturehouse
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