'Clarissa' Review: A Meticulously Stylized Mrs. Dalloway Adaptation [TIFF 2026]
Directors Arie and Chuko Esiri smartly reimagine the classic novel.
It doesn’t take a English major nor a seasoned cinephile to decree the importance of taking creative liberties when adapting or re-adapting classic stories, especially those of literary origin. Look no further than one of this year’s biggest cultural moments in The Odyssey, wherein a master filmmaker took one of the world’s canonical classics, adapting many of the story’s hallmarks, while using the essence of the story to tell a new thematically relevant story for today’s audiences. Enter Clarissa, the latest film from Arie and Chuko Esiri, which swaps Virginia Woolf’s 1920’s London for both a contemporary and 1980’s/90’s Nigeria.
From the get go, audiences will realize that Clarissa is different than the traditional period or even Virginia Woolf adaptation, beyond just the new setting and time periods. This kind of clever synthesis exhibited by the Esiris extends to the very form of the film itself. Clarissa embraces the original novel’s non-linearity, and does so in a way that yields both quiet introspection, which in some ways feels as in the unspoken is prosaic, but also embraces a light sense of surrealism as a through-line between the many eras of the story. Yet, while an impressive pairing, I feel as if the film never quite gets to an ideal balance between the intentful withholding of its non-linearity and the eventual climax.
Lesser filmmakers than the Esiris would have simply just mined the aesthetics of Nigeria and its culture without much thought given to purpose or theme. Instead, Clarissa is able to take the three eras of Mrs Dalloway and use them to evoke larger thematic conversations about class, diaspora, desire and even historical political turmoil. Though parts of the story inhabit a modern Lagos with more cosmopolitan architecture, so much of the story is grounded in Clarissa Dalloway’s home, which, walk with me here, evokes so much of a literary vibe. Not only does the home exude the classist structure and vibe of an English home in Woolf’s era, but traces of a more coquettish, Faulkner-esque sense of decay. Whether the latter was intentional or not, the care given to every element of how Clarissa looks is commendable. Cinematographer Jonathan Bloom captures what I can only describe as a hazily sharp look for the film that reverberates through all three eras, and is especially noticeable during the ‘flashback’ portions of the film featuring the younger cast. Both the natural and architectural settings are a treat to look at.
My own knowledge of Nigerian history and social structure is fairly limited, but the film becomes very interesting by virtue of its lead characters being Nigerians of the British diasporic category. I’m sure that many other Western moviegoers will see these very intentionally British accents carrying more thematic semblance than just having a vague tie to the source material, and the more luxurious lives that our ensemble leads are not presented solely to relish in a more ‘bourgeois’ aesthetic.
Earlier in this review, I briefly mentioned how the unspoken in the film feels almost prosaic, a notion that would be challenging to elaborate on, as I’d likely run the risk of restating a series of events without much commentary. Yet, so much visible trust can be seen through this excellent ensemble of both our younger, older and in-between groups of cast. Even when the film can struggle with feeling a little too distant from one time period at a time, the looks of yearning and regret between the ensemble make up for said distance in a sense of emotion. The young cast, anchored by India Amarteifio, Toheeb Jimoh and Ayo Edebiri, feel like they were ripped from a film of their own, and these flashbacks remain compelling even as their purpose becomes gradually more transparent.
An unexpected, but absolutely welcome, and in fact overdue moment for Sophie Okonedo seems to be upon us, with her eponymous and enigmatic turn here as Clarissa Dalloway, and with a much warmer turn in Mouse, which will also be released this fall. Anyone who has followed Okonedo over the years knows just how capable a performer she is, and while a much more traditionally ‘big’ role here would have been great to see, she brings such a gravitas that accentuates the film’s purposeful withholding, embodied through every glance or spoken half-truth.
Though there’s a lot to appreciate about Clarissa, I wish I could say it all acquiesced in a more satisfying manner. Not all three main storylines feel as if they’re on an equally compelling level, but perhaps that is a qualm unique to me. The plotline involving Nigerian soldier Septimus (Fortune Nwafor) is interesting in isolation, both on its own and how it speaks to the film’s larger theme of class and legacy, but never quite acquieses to the main plotline of Clarissa’s dinner party or rose-tinted summer flashbacks. I also felt that the main plotline itself didn’t fully reach a point of definite thematic ‘boom’ that resolves the cold connections between eras. Perhaps more avid fans of Virginia Woolf and/or those more versed in Nigerian history may be able to more easily reconcile the thematics upon first watch, but I will say that the film never feels inaccessible in this regard. There are stretches of the film that feel a bit aimless and caught between the trifurcation of it all, and lack the conciseness of feeling that the performances so deeply express.
In any case, I fully appreciate a film like Clarissa. For all my qualms, I can confidently say that the Esiris reach such a interesting stylistic vibe that coats the whole film with an extremely literary feel, and parlay the more conventional trappings and bigger stars at their arsenal into very interesting formal and socio-political territory that I see being more fruitful in for interpretation upon the film’s eventual release.