After Queen Elizabeth I commands him not to grow old, a young nobleman struggles with love and his place in the world.
Young nobleman Orlando is commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to stay forever young. Miraculously, he does just that. The film follows him as he moves through several centuries of British history, experiencing a variety of lives and relationships along the way, and even changing sex.—Phythian
Orlando, a man of ideal nobility starts his search for love, poetry, a place in society and a meaning in life, in and around the court of historical England in the late 16th century. The blessing of eternal life from Queen Elizabeth I enables him a long and deep philosophical quest, accompanied by the features of "noble" English life with a good taste for irony. Both sides of the coin are shown when Orlando, partly fed up and disgusted with how men think and act, returns from his ambassadorship in the Far East as exactly the same person, let alone his sex. Orlando, a woman of ideal nobility continues her journey to realize the truth about life, love, and approaching one's own sex in the late 18th century England. For one who lived four hundred years and haven't aged a day, finding humanity's forgotten need for androgynity as the key to the happiness of her own as well as her daughter's. Sally Potter's adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando not only tells the story on film with brilliant visual design, but also tries to extend the plot as Woolf would have, had she lived to the end of the twentieth century.—Adam Dobay
The story begins in the Elizabethan era in 1600 AD, shortly before the death of Queen Elizabeth I (Quentin Crisp) in 1603. On her deathbed, the queen promises an androgynous young nobleman named Orlando (Tilda Swinton) a large tract of land and a castle built on it, along with a generous monetary gift; both Orlando and his heirs would keep the land and inheritance forever, but Elizabeth will bequeath it to him only if he assents to an unusual command: "Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old." The queen had treated Orlando as a son of her old age (and the limb of her infirmity) and her mascot, and she considered Orlando as her favorite.Orlando was interested in poetry. Orlando was lonely and he sought company over privilege. The Queen ruled with absolute power over her subjects and nobody dared question her decisions.
When Elizabeth dies, Orlando becomes attracted to Sasha (Charlotte Valandrey) in 1610, the daughter of a Russian diplomat. Orlando was engaged to an English nobleman's daughter Euphrosyne (Anna Healy) at this time. Orlando and Sasha connected as they had many shared interests such as the French language. Orlando spends more time with Sasha and this is observed by the entire court.
Earl of Moray (Simon Russell Beale) had warned Orlando that his affair with Sasha will be taken as an insult to all English women. Orlando follows his heart and as a result his engagement is broken. Orlando is madly in love with Sasha, but is still sad and melancholy. Sasha says that Orlando takes everything too seriously.
One day he sees Sasha kissing a Russian sailor, when he drops Sasha at the Russian ship. Sasha insists that Orlando only saw shadows as the sailor was simply escorting Sasha across the deck of a ship. Orlando declares his love for Sasha and implores her to stay, but she decides to leave for Russia once the ice breaks. Orlando is heartbroken.
by 1650, Orlando acquiesces and reposes in splendid isolation in the castle (he sleeps for one week straight and no amount of effort from the butlers of the house could wake him up) for a couple of decades during which time he dabbles in poetry and art. Orlando writes poems with inspiration from his general sadness from life and the treachery of women.
Orlando tries to have his work validated by noted poets such as Nick Greene (Heathcote Williams), who ridicules him. His attempts at befriending Greene falls flat. Greene says that most work of genius came from poverty and desperation that put the poets in touch with their most inner feelings, but Orlando came from a life of luxury and hence could never feel those emotions and hence his work would never have the quality of a genius.
Greene says that he has a large heart, a ruptured spleen, a bad liver and a large knot in his spine. He has a constant headache and yet despite going through this misery, his poems have sold only 115 copies.
Orlando even offers Greene a pension of 300 pounds a year, but Greene simply laughs at his work. Greene implies that he cannot insult his host as Orlando is rich, but Orlando understands his meaning and sends him away from the castle.
Orlando gets interested in politics and convinces the English King to send him to Constantinople (in 1700) as English ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. The emperor The Khan (Lothaire Bluteau), asks Orlando for British Empire's help in war against mutual enemies. The Khan is apprehensive that the English have the habit of annexing nations, but Orlando assure him that it is not his mission to do so.
The Khan realizes that Orlando has come to Constantinople to mend a broken heart.Orlando and the Emperor become good friends and share bread and wine together. After 10 years Archduke Harry (John Wood) arrives and informs Orlando that he has been promoted by his sovereign Queen Anne. At the celebratory dinner, the Emperor tells Orlando that the enemy is at their city gates and demands his help in war. Orlando is forced to pick up arms to keep his promise to the Emperor. Orlando witnesses too much death and blood in the war at the city gates. He falls unconscious.Waking seven days later, he learns something startling: He has transformed into a woman.
The now Lady Orlando comes home to her estate in Middle Eastern attire in 1750, only to learn that she faces several impending lawsuits arguing that Orlando was a woman all along and therefore has no right to the land or any of the royal inheritance that the queen had promised. Archduke Harry offers to marry Orlando, to grant her respectability, but she refuses, which offends Harry.
Orlando continues to nurse her love for poetry and meets several leading authors of the generation including Swift (Roger Hammond) and Pope (Peter Eyre). She finds that women are their muse, but they have no respect or admiration for females. They also consider a woman without a father, or a husband as "lost".
The succeeding two centuries tire Orlando; Orlando falls in love with a US adventurer Shelmerdine (Billy Zane). She feels she has found her soulmate. She has sex with Shelmerdine. Meanwhile the British crown pronounces that Orlando is a female and will lose her property unless she bears a son. Orlando refuses to go with Shelmerdine to the US, the land of liberty and freedom.
The court case, bad luck in love, and the wars of British history eventually bring the story to the present day (i.e., the early 1990s).Orlando now has a young daughter in tow and is in search of a publisher for her book. (The literary editor who judges the work as "quite good" is portrayed by Heathcote Williams-the same actor who played the poet who had, earlier in the film, denigrated Orlando's poetry.)Having lived a most bizarre existence, Orlando, relaxing with her daughter, points out to her an angel.
