1992 Movie Adaptation of Orlando by Virginia Woolf

In the movie Orlando, which was adapted from Virginia Woolf's novel in 1992, we see a lot of striking scenes that manage to get the point and theme of the story across. As one of the best-known icons of feminism, Woolf's Orlando touches on a lot of biases enforced by society towards gender roles, and the movie adaptation does not fall back on the original. Even though some changes are made in the movie version, it is mostly loyal to the book and its mission.

The two most striking scenes that upset normative gender roles in Orlando were the scene where Orlando becomes a woman and the scene right before the Labyrinth scene. She did not get shocked or sad when he woke up from his sleep the second time and saw that he was now a she. She declared that she was the same person even though her gender changed. This scene shows that becoming a woman or a man does not restrain one from becoming who they are and what they can do, unlike what society imposes. Moreover, in the scene before the Labyrinth scene, Orlando refuses the Archduke’s marriage proposal by stating that his admiration for her does not make him the possessor of her. In this scene, Orlando faces the words she indicated to Sasha before, which Sasha did not oppose but Orlando herself does. She refuses to be a man's property, and with the words she uttered while entering the labyrinth, she also refuses the labels the Archduke sees as proper for her unmarried status. Both of these scenes show how Orlando rejects covering up her personality, her goals, and all the other things that make her who she is because society tells her to since she is a woman now.

With many other good scenes and successful acting, this movie is worth a watch since it helps one see gender roles and society's approach to them from a different perspective.