The Heart Wants What It Wants: How Carrington Changed My View on Love and LGBTQ+ Acceptance

Carrington: A Catalyst for Change

Before I watched Carrington (1995), I was — if I’m being honest — somewhat ambivalent about the subject of LGBTQ+ acceptance. I wasn’t hostile or closed-minded, but it always felt like a conversation that existed outside my own lived experience as a hetrosexual woman. I was – and still am – an advocate of the live and let live philosophy. I had no point of emotional reference, nothing that truly made it real. And then I watched this film. And something changed.

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Carrington, a biographical drama about the unconventional love between British painter Dora Carrington and writer Lytton Strachey, didn’t just tell a story. It offered me an opportunity: to walk a mile in another person’s shoes. Or rather, in the complicated, mismatched shoes of two people whose souls were tethered, despite everything else.

An Unconventional Love Story Based on Truth

Set against the backdrop of early 20th-century England and the infamous Bloomsbury Group — a circle of artists, writers, and thinkers known for challenging Victorian norms — the film chronicles the relationship between Carrington (played by Emma Thompson) and Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce), a gay man who became the most enduring love of her life.

Their relationship defied easy categorisation. It wasn’t romantic in the traditional sense, nor purely platonic. It was deeply emotional, profoundly spiritual, and utterly inseparable. Even as each had lovers — male and female, fleeting and long-term — their bond remained unbroken.

When Strachey died, Carrington, in despair, took her own life. Because for her, love and life had become one and the same. And without him, she no longer saw a reason to continue.

Why This Film Moved Me

There’s a saying: The heart wants what the heart wants. We often use it to excuse irrational crushes or difficult relationships. But Carrington made me understand the depth of that sentiment in a way I never had before.

What this film shows — so tenderly, so unflinchingly — is how love doesn’t obey rules. It’s not defined by orientation, gender, social norms, or what makes “sense” on paper. Love is, in its purest form, the recognition of another soul by your own. And sometimes, those souls don’t match up in conventional ways. Sometimes they come from entirely different worlds. But when they find each other, it’s irreversible.

That idea touched me more deeply than I expected. It made me see that for many in the LGBTQ+ community, this is the reality — not a phase, not a rebellion, but an honest, helpless experience of who touches your soul and why.

The Power of Storytelling and Representation

What made Carrington so powerful was not just the historical accuracy or the performances (which are brilliant, by the way), but the humanity. It didn’t try to preach or persuade. It simply told a story — raw, messy, beautiful — of two people trying to navigate their feelings in a world that didn’t offer much room for people like them.

And in doing so, it offered me a room I had never entered before.

As someone who values truth, integrity, and emotional insight, I found myself surprised at how gently this story rearranged my internal furniture. I began to see LGBTQ+ love not as an issue or an identity, but as a lived, felt, deeply human experience — no different from my own, except that society too often tries to deny it.

A Mirror, Not a Message

Some films try to teach us something. Others just show us something — and leave us changed. Carrington falls into the latter category. It doesn’t bang a drum. It lights a candle.

And that, I think, is what makes it such a powerful film for anyone unsure about where they stand on LGBTQ+ relationships. It doesn’t try to force acceptance. It just invites empathy.

When Souls Recognise Each Other

If love is the touching of two souls, then what Carrington shows is that those souls are at the mercy of something far beyond logic or convention. The gods, perhaps. Or fate. Or the simple, mysterious poetry of human connection.

What I took from this film is that we don’t get to choose who we love. But we do get to choose whether we honour that love in others — whether we make space for it, understand it, and let it teach us something about the depth of the human experience.

So, if you’re someone still unsure how you feel about LGBTQ+ love, I invite you to watch Carrington. Not as a political statement, but as a story. A story about love, longing, and loss. A story that changed me — and might change you too.

Call to Action on LGBTQ+ Rights

If this reflection moved you, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment, share this with someone who might resonate with it, and if you haven’t already — watch Carrington. You might come away seeing love in a whole new light.

Further Reading & References:

• Holroyd, Michael. Lytton Strachey: The New Biography. Vintage, 1995.
• Carrington, Noel (ed. David Garnett). Carrington: Letters and Extracts from Her Diaries. Oxford University Press, 1970.
• Angela Hill, “Carrington’s Sexuality and Artistic Identity,” Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 28, No. 2, 2005.
• IMDb: Carrington (1995)
• The Guardian, “Carrington review,” 1995.
• Festival de Cannes: Award Listing – Jonathan Pryce (1995)
• Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, 1971.
• Jeffrey Weeks, Coming Out: Sexuality, Identity and Politics, Quartet Books, 1977.

Thank You for Reading!

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If you’re interested in diving deeper into topics like this, don’t forget to check out the Donc Voila Quoi Podcast, where I discuss these ideas in more detail. You can also follow me on Pinterest @doncvoilaquoi and Instagram @jessielouisevernon, though my accounts have been shut down before (like my old @doncvoilaquoi on Instagram), so keep an eye out for updates.