The Hours
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Movie Reviews of The Hours
Movie Review: " You Are Laura Brown."
Summary: 5 Stars
I must say that I loved this movie a great deal, and I saw it at the theater 2 times, but I saw Frida 5 times. I am very pleased with the cast, art direction, director, and oringinal score. What I was trully disappointed and even upset by was that Salma Hayek lost the Oscar to Nicole Kidman who had just one third of the movie here, and Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep not only had more screen time, but were more mesmerizing. Kidman was better in her other films including The Others, Moulin Rouge, and her breakthrough To Die For. This beautiful and artsy "heavy-duty" drama is not going to be appreciated by anyone who has sexual phobia or unsympathetic towards depressed and tramatized characters vividly portrayed here by Ed Harris, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep. If you embrace this film, you will be profoundly moved. Otherwise, you'll probably end up resenting it.
Everyone in The Hours has something to do with the book Mrs. Dalloway written by Virginia Wolfe(Nicole Kidman) in the '30s of Richmond, England, and Julianne Moore played a depressed housewife named Laura Brown living in Los Angeles in the '50s. Wolfe's book not only made an impact on Laura Brown, it also affected the lives of a the readers of modern day include Laura Brown's son Richard, a writer played by the scene-stealing Ed Harris, and his caretaker/ex-lover Clarissa Vaughan(Meryl Streep). Mrs. Dalloway is a character of good hostess, and she likes to throw parties for her friends, but ultimately neglects herself and becomes depressed. Clarissa gets nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway by Richard, because she loves to throw parties.
The three time periods and stories are not directly connected, by it serves the same purpose for the film, and it's edited meticulously along with appropriate scores that makes the film consistent. The film takes place in just one day in three different eras. It the beginning, Wolfe narratted a suicide note as she walked into a river after completing the writing of Mrs. Dalloway. Then it goes backward to early on in the day before when she was still working on the book. The three eras are inserted between each other back and forth as the day in the lives of three women progresses.
In the day of Virginia, she gets a visit from her sister(played by the mesmerizing Miranda Richardson), and her children. While she was lounging with them, her mind was in the world of Mrs. Dalloway, and her sister was overwhelmed that she's still so eccentric and unstable. Later, she attempted to ran away from her husband, because she didn't want to live in Richmond anymore, and wanted to move back to London. Her husband acused of her mental sickness.....
In the day of Laura Brown, she's heavily pregnant, and she spends the day at home with her son Richard. She reads Mrs. Dalloway, and was moved by it a great deal. She bakes a cake for her husband's(John C. Reiley) birthday with the help of Richard. Her neighbor Kitty comes over to ask her to take care of her dog when she goes to the hospital. Toni Collette is just in this one scene(about 5 mins.), and she's quite striking, especially when she engages a "lesbian kiss" with Julianne Moore. This moment she realized that she's so unhappy being a housewife, and wanted to end it. Later, Brown impulsively abandons Richard and proceeded a suicide attempt like the end of the book in a hotel room.......
In the day of Mrs. Dalloway/Clarissa Vaughan buys the flowers herself like Mrs. Dalloway in the book. She goes to visit Richard who's dying of AIDS, and has no desire to live any longer. The party is being put together for him to celebrate his award-winning novel based on his life, with a "monster" character based on his mother, but he's reluctant to go, because he didn't want anyone to see him so sick. One of Richard's ex-boyfriend(Jeff Daniel) also came to her apartment when she was preparing the food. She breaks down into massive tears when they talked about the old memories of their relationship with Richard.......
Other supporting roles are well played by Allison Janney(Clarissa's lover), Stephen Dillane(Wolfe's unconditional-loving husband), and Claire Danes(Clarissa's daughter).
I was very moved by Ed Harris role and performance. He really portrayed all the pain and sadness of someone who is dying and had been abandoned by his mother when he was a boy. The scene when he committed suicide in front of Clarissa was so powerful. Meryl Streep was mesmerizing! Julianne Moore's depressed and suicidal housewife who chose to abandon her family instead killing herself may be unlikeable, but she's more outstanding, especially her scene opposite Meryl Streep when her character aged to be an old woman. The remorse and sadness on her face was flawless. As for Nicole Kidman, the scene at the train station was her best in this movie. It was a very heavy agruement with her husband. She's very meticulous with the mannerism, even though she doesn't totally looked like Virginia Wolfe. She's captivately when her mind is doing multiple thinking. Overall, Julianne Moore's crying scenes are more compelling to watch, because she's more vulnerable of the three.
Movie Review: "If it's a choice - Richmond and death, then I choose death"
Summary: 5 Stars
I've viewed this movie four times now, and there's always something different to see. The Hours is an absolutely superlative film, and is easily one of the best films of the past few years. Whether it is a meditation on suicide, a celebration of the gift of life, deference to literature, or a steadily evolving triptych of three angst-ridden women, The Hours packs a huge emotional punch. On this viewing, it is again easy to see why Nicole Kidman won the Oscar for best actress - her portrayal of the depressive, mentally ill Virginia Woolf who, on doctors orders, is banned from London and is confined to the suffocation of the country - will probably go down in history as one of the great moments of screen acting.
Based on Michael Cunningham's book, The Hours tells of one day in the life of three women, each from different time periods. Their lives intertwine and intersect in surprising ways and it is almost as though they are communicating with one another across the eons. They are linked by frustration, despair and the difficulty they have in finding places for themselves in the world. They also share a relationship to yet another fictional woman, the title character of one of Virginia Woolf's most famous novels, Mrs. Dalloway.
The film begins with Virginia Woolf (a riveting Nicole Kidman) narrating a suicide note to her husband. The year is 1941 and she has wrestled with madness for many years and feels another spell of it coming on. Rather than subject her husband to it, whom she says has made her so very happy, she drowns herself in a river. The story then flashes back to 1921 when she and Leonard, her husband (an excellent Stephen Dillane), are living a secluded life in rural Richmond. Virginia is terribly unhappy, and feels as though the country is contributing to her mental suffocation. This confinement is made all the more maddening when her lively sister (Miranda Richardson) comes to visit from swinging, sophisticated London.
Virginia's story acts as the framing device for the two other stories: Housewife Laura Brown (Julianne Moore, who should also have won an Oscar) is living in Los Angeles in 1951. She is drowning in a sea of marriage and motherhood. She loves her son and her husband (John C. Reilly), but when her best friend Kitty (an incredible Toni Colette) comes to visit, Laura realizes that life is not worth living, and considers abandoning her family. She contemplates suicide, but before she does this, she anxiously bakes a birthday cake for her husband and restlessly reads Mrs. Dalloway. Meryl Streep plays Clarissa Dalloway living in New York in 2001. Clarissa happily lives with her lover (Alison Janney) and is preparing a party for her best friend Richard (Ed Harris), who has just one a major poetry prize and is dying of AIDS. In 1921 Virginia begins to write Mrs. Dalloway, in 1951 Laura reads Mrs. Dalloway, and in 2001 Clarissa organizes party, just as Mrs. Dalloway did in the novel.
This circular, multi-layered narrative is held together with Phillip Glass's melodious, and unobtrusive musical score and some of the best editing techniques, which intimately inter-cut the stories by means of parallel gestures and words. Throughout the day each woman's life unfolds and the viewer soon learns that each is faced with certain choices about whether they should choose life over death. Both Laura, through her actions, and Virginia, though her writing, question why we should persist in holding on to our existence despite the pain it is sure to cause us.
The Hours is about those things we don't say because they don't fit into words; it's a film of lost feelings, bizarre, unscrambling emotions and trying to figure out what lies beneath the surface. We are all terribly alone, and that the relationships that we do develop between people are often intransient and frequently fragile. The Hours is a grand, melancholy and uneasy film that is multifaceted and full of meaning.
Unrecognizable in a false nose and Ann Roth's excellent costumes, Kidman has gotten a death grip on this character. The climax comes with her riveting monologue on a train station, where, with tears in her eyes, and the look of pain on her face, she desperately argues with her husband to return them to London. It's a scene of spellbinding emotional power, as we see Woolf's controlled turmoil of creativity, her all-consuming mental anguish, and perhaps a portent of the welcoming blissfulness of her death. Mike Leonard January 05.
Movie Review: Kidman, Moore, and Streep give tour de force performances!!
Summary: 5 Stars
To me, the premise of "The Hours" was a little intimidating to me before I finally managed to see the film: Three women are linked through three time periods to Virginia Woolf's novel 'Mrs. Dalloway'. I was concerned that my blazing ignorance to Ms. Woolf's work, and this one in particular, would hinder my enjoyment of the film and my ability to understand it. Not so. Yes, 'Mrs. Dalloway' was at the root of the three stories presented, but everything you need to know is in the film. This is it, basically: Mrs. Dalloway decides one morning -- the morning of a party she is throwing -- that she will buy the flowers herself. Though she projects the appearance of togetherness and cheer, she is a lonely, empty woman inside. Oh, and someone dies at the end. That's it.In "The Hours", we meet three women. First is Virginia herself (Nicole Kidman), and our introduction comes in the form of her 1941 suicide at the age of 59. A feminist Ophelia, she places a stone in her dress pocket, walks to a nearby stream, and lets it carry her away. Her brief, mortal stroll is voiced-over by her suicide letter, which explains to her husband that this act of desperation is to spare him the madness she feels is returning. The rest of her story takes place in 1923 as 'Mrs. Dalloway' is working its way out of her. Flashing forward to 1951, we see Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), depressed housewife of WWII veteran Dan (John C. Reilly) and mother of a young son. It's Dan's birthday, and Laura, in the middle of reading 'Mrs. Dalloway', decides that she will feel better today and bake a cake. Cut to 2001, and publisher Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) is preparing a reception for author and friend (and long-ago lover) Richard (Ed Harris). Richard has just won a prestigious poetry award but is too ill from AIDS and related dementia to want to go to the party.
Each of these women are depressed. Each awakes and acquires flowers. Each has something special going on that day -- a party of sorts. Each of these women kisses another woman. They all face suicide, and they all face the choice between death and the imprisonment of life. They each make a choice. The variations on these choices, while sometimes disorienting, are exactingly faithful to each other. Sometimes they reveal themselves suddenly, consecutively. Other times they surface gradually, inconspicuously. Like Philip Glass' subtle, driving score, they build gracefully from a whisper into a cry and by film's end find themselves whispering again.
"The Hours" is a miracle of a movie. Literate, involving, active -- it is that rare film about women and their unique experiences that neither excludes nor condemns the role of men in their lives. The men of "The Hours", Woolf' stoic and supportive husband (Stephen Dillane), Brown's husband and son, poet Richard, and his former lover Louis (Jeff Daniels) -- the sexual politics of the film are sometimes scattered but fascinating -- are innocent bystanders who, while making decisions to maintain or find their own happiness, neither victims nor devalue these unhappy women. Their depressions are unto themselves, and their lives entrap them in ways that their respective others cannot assist or understand.
All of the performances in "The Hours" are excellent, uniquely extraordinary, and utterly unforgettable. Ms. Kidman, unrecognizable behind a prosthetic nose, does more refined work here than I have ever seen from her. Her Woolf is depressed but never pitiful and always strong whatever the hardship. Ms. Moore, playing a very different '50s housewife from her "Far From Heaven" turn, gets it just right. In the midst of true depression, something as simple as baking a cake becomes an overwhelming, impossible task. Moore's battle with the cake is heartbreakingly sorrowful when she fails, yet somehow sadder when she gets it right. Ms. Streep, meanwhile, shows us again why she is Streep -- equally profound unraveling before the party and, in a devastating scene at the end, as she just listens to a voice from the past that puts things into perspective.
Sad, but never far from hope, "The Hours" not only also has an outstanding supporting cast (including Claire Danes, Allison Janney, Miranda Richardson) and superb direction from Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot"), it is also one of the finest films of 2003 and of recent memory. A great DVD must-own for any Nicole Kidman fan, any Julianne Moore fan, or even any Meryl Streep fan!
Movie Review: Melodramatic Yes....Dissapointing No!
Summary: 5 Stars
Recently I viewed the movie, "The Hours" starring Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris and Julianne Moore. The movie is based on the book by Michael Cunningham and follows the book's ideas about as precisely as possible for a screenplay conversion.The story revolves around the author, Virginia Woolf, as she writes her story, "Mrs. Dalloway" and how the words she writes affect two other women in different time periods. Virginia is portrayed by Nicole Kidman and she does a wonderful job showing the essence of Virginia's depression and self-doubt. A brilliant writer who involves all of your senses in her prose she succumbs to the artist's tendency to be self-doubters and insecure, possibly from all the exposure to critics at every bend and corner. The cigarettes she smokes seethe about her as she contemplates her suicide and a word to leave behind, like her soul is going up in smoke. She lies beside a dead bird and she feels dead before her time, unable to fly and stifled by depression that is never fully explained. Her end is filmed in such a way that she surrenders herself to the river's current and slowly gets swept away by nature but she seems somehow freed by her own death, floating along in time and crossing the borders that time presents.
Julianne Moore plays the character, Laura Brown; a pregnant homemaker in the 1950's who is struggling with what life has to offer her. She seems to exist in a blur of emotion all of which sways towards depression. She attempts to bake a perfect cake for her "perfect" husband's birthday and fails sending herself into a moment of panic that almost produces her own demise. She runs away from her child and stays alone in a hotel ready to take her life and that of her unborn. She reads "Mrs. Dalloway" and becomes involved in another's misfortune which somehow awakens her to her senses and she retreats back to the normalcy of her mundane life. I could not help but be emotional during a scene where she is preparing herself for bed and her husband calls from the bedroom, "Come to bed Laura Brown," it left me with a sickened feeling. In Laura's eyes you see her sadness and her desperate need to leave but she stays, unhappily, like a servant.
Meryl Streep plays, Clarissa Vaughn, a modern woman who follows the footsteps of Virginia's character "Mrs. Dalloway" as she spends her day catering to others. She buys flowers in desperate attempts to cheer up those around her when in fact she is the one who is in need of cheer. She tries to revive a dying man played brilliantly by Ed Harris, Richard, who is succumbing to the power of AIDS and all of its downfalls. Clarissa opens windows for brightness where all she sees is gray; she perks up the grayness with flowers but only manages to bring a feeling of hopelessness to Richard instead. His writing award seems to go unnoticed although she plans a tremendous celebration his soul just shuts down. Under all of the pressure Clarissa breaks down and experiences the sadness of the day and the reality of death. Richard falls from his own window in his desperate act of suicide and mercy. Clarissa is left to deal with all of the pain.
In the end we learn that Richard is in fact the son of Laura Brown. Seemingly she has transferred her loneliness and despair to the life of her own son without regret. She explains that she abandoned her family after all, needing to conduct her life on her own terms.
The music and the language of the film inspire creative juices, especially the scenes where Virginia Woolf is speaking. Having read the book first I was able to experience more than the film managed to contain although the film was more easily explained. I recommend both expressions for the full impact of these desperate women and the lives they lead. It will not take hours to be gripped by their needs.
Movie Review: Waiting for Death in Life
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is extremely disquieting. It is centered on Virginia Wolf and her character Mrs Dolloway. This character, this book is transmitted then through two generations of people with very catastrophic consequences. The book, like Virginia Wolf, is haunted by suicide, by death, by those hours during which a person lives death in life waiting for death, expecting death, preparing death, the hours after death that can only be imagined and that are seen as a liberation from life, from a life haunted by death. The fate of Mrs Dolloway is transmitted to a female reader a few decades later, but this woman who tries the road to death steps back and chooses life. So she abandons her family, her son and daughter, her husband and goes to Toronto. But the seed of suicide is transmitted to her son, who will become a poet, and he will court death to the end like the poet in Mrs Dolloway. He will meet love in a woman and apparently have a daughter from her, or is it really from her ? But he will be a poet, the poet of Mrs Dolloway, to the end of his life. He will look for dangerous situations and dangerous experiments. He will get AIDS and he will eventually commit suicide on the very day when he is recognized as a great poet, as the great poet he is, because he cannot go on living with his disease, with his pills, with his fate, waiting for death to come when it wants, leaving him abandoned and stranded in the hours before death, hours that can last years because of the treatment he gets. So Virginia Wolf will drown away in a river and the poet, Richard, will jump from the sill of the window of his sick man's nook. And yet the film goes farther by concentrating on the suffering of Virginia Wolf's husband and of Richard's paramour. The suffering of those who are accompanying these people doomed to die by their own hands and decisions. A suffering that has no limits because it is like an accusation standing in the way, the accusation that their love has been a prison, that their love has been the prison from which those doomed people want to escape. The more they love, the more they try to protect, the more they try to motivate the other into living, the more they fail and the more the other wants to disappear, to cut short the hours of waiting for death and enter the hours of after death. Poignant. And the actors, especially the actresses are outstanding in their rendering of this suffering, of this exploration of death in life, of this witnessing of life in death. The composition of these actresses is so fine, so delicate, so sensitive that we hardly recognize them in their parts. Nicole Kidman is probably the most perfect rendition of this escape from any image of her we may have in our mind's eye. They reach archetypal acting that makes the characters more important than the actresses. They disappear as concrete human beings in the fictional people they render on the screen. This leads to a feeling of absolute enslavement in our own lives and a desire to get out of these waiting hours in which we live with death behind the wings, a death we had never seen but that becomes omnipresent at this moment. Are we going to go down the way Mrs Dolloway is pointing at ? Are we going to be the woman who invented and created this Mrs Dolloway ? Are we going to be the poet of the book who says goodbye and disappears in the hours after the passing threshold of the end of life ? We could watch and watch again this film a hundred times and yet not come to any real answer though our desire to get free from these hours of waiting, into these hours of undescribable liberation beyond grows with each viewing. Is suicide the way to liberation for individuals who can see beyond the surface of things ?Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan