this be always go to be a hard novel to adapt the very qualities that make it a great read make a confusing film . the book have a mysterious and dream like and languid quality woolf can slip over hundred of year in a sentence and the reader admire her prose skill and absolute razor conciseness . on the screen though a jump of that kind and with no explanation and be just confuse . we detect from early on in the book that it more of a psychological fable set against a literary or historical background than a naturalistic and historical story with a real plot . but on film all the realistic period detail etc take in by your eye make you instinctively expect realistic event . might have be a well film if do like a greenaway and so clear to the viewer it not a realistic story etc . or if completely re interpreted and or turn into a feminist polemic by just translate as closely a possible event from the book to screen it just thin and pointless . plus many long and silent and madness inducing pause in the film and which obviously you do not get in a book . there simply no tory in the film and no reason to care and and the only character see long enough to register be tilda swinton orlando and who a a distant and expressionless and apparent immortal you just can not care about . we do not even get to know what it like to be orlando and and there no interest in the why and wherefore of his or her immortality so no threat and no learning and no story arc of any kind . all in all i can not recommend the book highly enough ( plus it really thin . ) but do not bother with the film .