Dante’s Inferno

The film opens with the exhumation of Lizzie Siddal's desiccated body and a montage of Rossetti dancing among the bonfire flames of Reynolds and Gainsborough paintings. A voice-over declares Rossetti a founder of the revolutionary Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The sequence links Lizzie's fate to the birth of a radical art movement.

A spectral image of Lizzie dressed as Joan of Arc rises above the flames, marking her as a muse and symbol within Rossetti's circle. She stands as a living emblem of the Pre-Raphaelite myth being built around him. The moment sets the tone for her central role in his art.

Lizzie models for Millais' Ophelia and for Rossetti's painting of Joan, securing her status as the movement's prized muse. Offstage, she eats little and often vomits, signaling a fragile health beneath the glamorous facade. The combination foreshadows the personal costs of their art.

Rossetti and Lizzie spend several years together as he paints, but she spurns his advances, even slashing him with a needle when he presses himself on her. Their relationship grows fraught, marked by pursuit and resistance. Rossetti increasingly seeks solace with his other muse, Fanny Cornforth.

Lizzie is introduced to laudanum by Emma Brown to ease her stomach pain, beginning a troubled dependence. Christina Rossetti urges Lizzie to consider that Dante Gabriel needs a patron, highlighting pressure from family and society. Christina's voice-over recites In an Artist's Studio, underscoring Lizzie's vulnerability.

Rossetti and Christina visit William Holman Hunt, who is painting The Light of the World. Hunt asks Rossetti to look after his girlfriend Annie Miller while he is away in the Holy Land painting The Scapegoat, but Rossetti has an affair with Annie and Hunt spurns her on his return.

John Ruskin visits Rossetti's studio and takes an interest in Lizzie's art, recognizing talent within the circle. The visit underscores the mingling of patronage, critique, and romance in their lives.

Rossetti meets Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris in Oxford, where they begin painting the Oxford Union murals and encounter the beautiful Jane Burden. The meeting seeds future collaborations and tensions inside the Brotherhood.

Jane Burden marries William Morris, while Rossetti marries Lizzie, tying the artists more closely to the personal network that fuels their work. The alliances deepen both creative collaboration and personal entanglements.

Lizzie's health deteriorates under laudanum and Rossetti's infidelity, culminating in her overdose and death. After her death, Rossetti buries his unpublished poems with her, sealing them in memory.

Some years later, Charles Augustus Howell persuades Rossetti to dig up the buried poems, bringing the earlier work back into circulation. The act haunts Rossetti and coincides with a slide into chloral addiction.

Fanny Cornforth rescues Rossetti from a suicide attempt, but he remains obsessed with Morris's wife Jane and resumes an affair with her when Morris is away. Jane remains distant, and Rossetti sinks further into addiction while isolated by his passions.