A powerful film well worthy of its acclaim. It follows three women in three time periods through just one day as each has to face up to the challenge of life.

The writer Virginia Woolf (Kidman) facing her depression and struggling sanity as she writes the novel Mrs. Dalloway, the reader Laura Brown (Moore) discovering that her ‘idillic’ 1950s life is destroying her, and the modern Mrs. Dalloway - Clarissa Vaughan (Streep) falling to pieces as she tries to prepare a party for her dying ex-lover Richard played by Ed Harris.

If it sounds sad, it is. But it is how they cope that strangely provides a real affirmation of ‘Life’. Perhaps as Woolf comments, “Someone has to die Leonard, in order that the rest of us should value life more.” I guess with some depressive tendencies of my own I easily sympathise with Moore’s character: or is it the shared surname?

A tough film providing some stunning performances from the leads and Harris. I caught a re-run of this film on an Air China flight and was amused it had been edited to remove scenes where women kiss women. Yet it happily left in Aids, Richard as gay, suicide etc. I guess that’s the problem with censorship: its illogical at best.