The Hours
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Movie Reviews of The Hours
Movie Review: Three women discover that they have lost their lives
Summary: 5 Stars
I went into the Oscars this year only having strong feelings about Conrad Hall and Thomas Newman for "Road to Perdition" in the categories of Cinematography and Original Score respectively and ended up one for two (Hall won his final Oscar posthumously but Newman lost out to Elliot Goldenthal for "Frieda"). However, I know want to be retroactively be outraged that David Hare did not pick up the little golden dude for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published for the seamless way in which he weaved together the three stories of three women in three different times and places that make up "The Hours." By the point in the opening credits when Nicole Kidman's Virginia Woolf and Meryl Streep's Clarissa Vaughan both put up their hair for the day sixty years apart while in a time in between Julianne Moore's Laura Brown picks up the copy of "Mrs. Dalloway" that she is reading, the conceit is firmly established in our mind.Granted, I may well find this particularly effective because I have consumed more than my fair share of twisted time travel tales, so unconventional narrative form violating rules of time and space (American montage from start to finish) does not inherently confuse me. Instead, I found "The Hours" (the working title of Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway") to be intellectually engaging. Hare is presenting the stories in Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize winning novel as parts of a puzzle. Laura Brown feels that Woolf's novel is speaking to her on a deep and personal level, reading in it an impulse towards suicide; after all, Woolf ended her life by loading stones into her coat and drowning herself in the river outside her Sussex home. But Hare's screenplay has Woolf reconsidering the ending to her novel and the question of which character should be fated to die, and that shift in thinking resonates through the years to Brown's situation. The parallels with Clarissa Vaughan are decidedly different as she ministers to her ex-husband Richard (Ed Harris), a poet of intense bitterness dying of AIDS, and who insists on calling her "Mrs. Dalloway." Not only does she share the same first name as Woolf's character, this Clarissa is also preparing to host a party, as is Brown. The parties are quite different, but each character examines their life in light of preparing for the event. Of course one party will happen and the other will not, but these divergent paths will ultimately unite as the narratives finally come together.
The performances in "The Hours" are as stellar as the cast, which is certainly not surprising. I found myself thinking that they should not have listed the cast in the opening credits because as the list of names goes by after the big three (Ed Harris, Stephen Dillane, Miranda Richardson, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Jeff Daniels, Claire Danes and John C. Reilly, who only managed to be in three of the five Oscar nominated films for Best Picture) is sort of distracts you from the way the film is setting the stage for the drama (compare with the way "Playing by Heart" introduces us to an equally stellar cast). The DVD offers two superb commentary tracks, the first featuring actresses Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep doing tag team commentaries on their scenes, while the second offers screenwriter Hare and director Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot"). They offer insights into how this finely crafted jewel of a film came into being. You should make a point of sitting through both of those before you even bother going to the bonus disc. In the final analysis, perhaps the greatest ironic truth of this film that is adapted from one novel which was inspired a classic novel is that it is such a literate film.
Movie Review: A Brilliant Film About Living And Facing The Hours...Of Life
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Cunningham's award winning novel, "The Hours," received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was chosen as Best Book of 1998 by The New York Times. Because the book is so extraordinary, I was apprehensive about how the film, based on this complex novel, could possibly succeed. David Hare performed a miracle in writing this true and beautiful adaptation, in a manner faithful to the book, and also suited for the big screen. He captured everything, including the important literary allusions, with great sensitivity and fidelity. Stephen Daldry's direction encouraged the superb talents of his ensemble cast. Daldry has once again proven to be a master of his craft.The film is a richly told, often tragic story, of the interwoven lives of three women, from three different periods in time. The common thread is Virginia Woolfe's novel Mrs. Dalloway.
Virginia Woolfe, brilliantly portrayed by Nicole Kidman, is living in isolation with her husband Leonard in 1923. Ms. Woolfe has a long history of mental illness, and has attempted suicide twice. Her doctors and her husband agree that she will possibly find peace away from London. The literary couple is living in Richmond, where Leonard has set up a printing press, thinking to involve his wife in publishing. She has begun to write "Mrs. Dalloway," the story of a day in the life of one woman, Clarissa Dalloway, "a woman's whole life in a single day - and in that day her whole life." Virginia is plainly fixated on death. She understands the nature of her illness, and at one point explains to Leonard that although he must live with the burden of her illness, so must she. She decides that someone in her new novel must die. When Richard asks who will die, and why, Virginia responds,"...the poet, the visionary will die, so that the others will value life more."
Laura Brown, (Julianne Moore), is a young housewife, pregnant with her second child, in post-World War II, Los Angles. She is desperately unhappy in her marriage. Her husband, a war veteran, clearly worships her. Their young son, with a child's intense perception, senses the tension and unhappiness in his mother, that his father seems oblivious to. Laura begins reading Virginia Woolfe's Mrs. Dalloway, and is deeply affected by the novel. She begins to have doubts about her life choices, and despairs that suicide may be her only way out.
Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep), lives in contemporary Manhattan, and is an editor and writer. She could be a mirror image of a modern Mrs. Dalloway. Her closest friend, and former lover, Richard, a novelist and poet, actually calls Clarissa, "Mrs. Dalloway." Like Woolfe's Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa is giving a party, for Richard, who is about to receive a prestigious lifetime achievement award for his poetry. She sets off one beautiful morning, like Mrs. Dalloway, to buy flowers for her party. Then she visits Richard, whom she has taken care of for years. He is slowly dying of AIDS.
The intermingling of the three women's lives, and their struggle to find meaning, outside of brief moments of happiness, is very powerful. The visual montage of the three women, is superb and so effective. It is almost a collage at times. The musical score is haunting, and adds much to the film's mood. And the acting is superior, not just by the three women, but by the entire supporting cast.
The tension builds toward a powerful ending, which even though I read the book, still came as a surprise. This is a deeply moving film, about living out the hours of ones life, about love, survival, and about mental illness and creativity. I highly recommended it!
Movie Review: A Remarkable Cast in Their Finest "Hours"
Summary: 5 Stars
An intelligent and lyrical film adaptation of Michael Cunningham's exquisite Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the ways in which any person's life can be drastically altered during the course of a seemingly normal day. The story cuts back and forth between three women's stories: in 1923, novelist Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is writing her novel "Mrs. Dalloway" while recuperating from a mental breakdown; in 1950's Los Angeles, housewife Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is reading Woolf's book and feeling a growing sense of desperation about her bland suburban existence; and in 2001 New York, middle-aged Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) is planning a party to honor a dying friend (Ed Harris) who has referred to her by the nickname "Mrs. Dalloway" since their youthful affair many years previously. Like Cunningham's book, the film spins all three stories simultaneously, pointing out the similarities and differences between each of the women's lives; and then finally ties all three threads together in a spectacularly clever and thought-provoking twist that reveals the larger pattern of the plot (some audiences members in the theatre where I saw the film actually gasped aloud as they began to understand). As befits such a character-driven film, the acting in "The Hours" is uniformly superb. Meryl Streep is luminous throughout as Clarissa, but particularly shines in her final scenes as she welcomes a stranger into her home; and Julianne Moore brings a fascinating combination of fragility and power to the role of the repressed Laura. Toni Collette infuses her short scenes as Laura's friend and neighbor Kitty with a marvelous counterpoint to Moore's quiet introspection; Miranda Richardson is restrained Victorian perfection as Virginia Woolf's demure sister; and Ed Harris is achingly brilliant in the small but showy role of Clarissa's dying friend.
Among this handful of flawless characterizations, it is Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf who nonetheless stands out. She completely disappears into her role; although much comment has been made about Kidman's prosthetic nose and the way it completely changes her appearance, it is not makeup alone which transforms the vivacious actress into the dowdy authoress. Kidman uses her mouth and eyes with incredible economy: her bowed lips move without disturbing her pale, translucent cheeks; and her downturned, darting eyes communicate eloquently her character's sense of uneasy restlessness. Kidman's Virginia seems uncomfortable in her tall body, and her voice is dangerously strained. It's a transcendent performance, and one with which Kidman solidifies her growing reputation as one of her generation's most talented screen actresses.
The film is beautifully photographed in dark, muted hues; the sets appear just as they were described in Cunningham's hauntingly visual novel. While Philip Glass's score is at times a bit obtrusive, it nonetheless contibutes effectively to the atmosphere of the film. The most stunning technical achievement of the film is the wonderful costume design; clothing styles and fabrics have been painstakingly planned and executed, providing some subtle foreshadowing and highlighting of important themes and motifs thoughout the narrative. Costumer Ann Roth should definitely find herself in the running for an Oscar, as should Streep, Moore, Kidman, Harris, director Stephen Daldry, film editor Peter Boyle, and of course, the Picture itself. Altogether, "The Hours" is an outstanding film that provides an extraordinary cast ample and unique opportunities to shine, especially its formidable trio of leading ladies.
Movie Review: A life I have no wish to live....
Summary: 5 Stars
I approched "The Hours" with very high expectations, perhaps due to my reading the novel of the same name prior driving an hour to view the film. I must say without doubt, I was not disappointed!Nicole Kidman was, to say the least, captivating, as the troubled and wonderful, bi-polar, Virginia Woolf! It seems that Kidman has not only erased every trace of her physical beauty, replacing it with the unkept, frumpy, and simply grey Mrs. Woolf, but she has also replaced her entire persona with that of the brillant, yet shocking, Woolf. Her stature, her body language, and her voice, were not her own!
The film begins in 1941, when Virginia Woolf put rocks in her coat pockets, and walked calmly out into a river, ending her own life. The film then backtracks to a day in her life years before, a day like any other when she rises to work on her books, Mrs Dalloway in this case, and then goes on to prepare tea party for her sister and her children. Later, Woolf runs away from home to the train station, her intention being, to escape to London. In these desperate moments, Nicole Kidman delivers a very heartfelt speech about her longing to return permently to London. "I'm living in a town I have no wish to liuve in. I'm living a life, I have no wish to live!"
Julianne Moore put in a fair battle for her character Laura Brown, but I believe the character was simply too complex for her, or anyone, to adequatly convay to an audiance. But this is not purely at falt to the actress. Many of the events which occur in the day we observe in Mrs. Brown's life occur in the mental realm, rather than the physical realm, and cannot be protrayed on film in the same manner that the book can protray it. In the day we see of her life, she wakes to begin reading Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. (A very well written book I might add) Mrs. Brown then goes on to create a cake for her husband's birthday party, which does not come out to her satisfaction, so she tosses it. She then decides that she must escape for a while, and leaving her son with a sitter, she goes to a hotel, her intention being to end her life then and there, takeing a collection of medications she has brought with her, much of this is left unexpained, and could, I suppose leave the audience to wonder her purpose in visiting the hotel. Although, after a rest, she decides to live, and returns to pick up her son, and to bake another cake for her husband.
Meryl Streep plays the third woman Clarissa Vaghen, a New Yorker who is the modern personification of Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, as well as being nicknamed "Mrs. Dalloway" by her best friend Richard. Streep's character is perhaps the one the audience will most readally understand, being her expressions are the most outward of the group, as well as being in a setting most familiar to the viewers. Ms. Vaghen's day encompasses her preparing a party for her friend Richard, being he has won a poetry award. I will not give away the revealing details of the story, which tie the lives together, but is safe to say, on this ordinary day, this day of all days, Clarissa's day, her party, and her life are radically changed.
This movie is exceedingly gripping, and entertaining, if you let it be. I recommend you read the Pulizer Prize winning novel of the same name before you view the film, as it will not only give you a deeping understanding of the story, but also of the characters themselves explaining how the characters feel about many of the situations they face!
If you love deeply involved and complex films, this one will not disappont!
Movie Review: Brilliant and timely
Summary: 5 Stars
Rare is the film in which you've heard of almost everyone in it. Like Gosford Park --similarly robbed with a single Oscar in 2001's competition--this film assembles the talent needed to bring a difficult script to life. Weaving three stories together is a deft feat, accomplished here by connecting the stories with the ties that bind them. These include the party each of the three main characters plans to host on the day in which the film takes place, the same-sex kiss each shares before the day is out, and Mrs. Dalloway , the Virginia Woolf novel that one character is writing, one is reading, and one is living. Also instrumental in keeping the flow of the movie going is a superb score by minimalist Philip Glass.
It's the acting that really shines, though. Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep earn our empathy in every scene, radiating their feelings above and beyond the carefully crafted script. Kidman's scowling Woolf, battling husband Stephen Dillane for the right to control her own troubled existence, is as believable a tortured genius as can be imagined, outshining even Russell Crowe's portrayal of John Nash. Moore's '50s housewife hides the pain of her discontent from her husband--an excellent John C. Reilly--but not from us. Streep's face telegraphs her joy at buying the flowers for her party and her guilty dismay when Ed Harris scolds her for living to throw it.
Still, why should you watch a movie about three women in the throes of crisis? Because the film conveys at least two messages of profound importance. The first is that happiness is not to be taken for granted. As Streep lies on her bed, talking to daughter Claire Danes, she recalls the day, long ago, when she awoke at dawn from a night spent with Harris, before both embarked on lives with same-sex partners. She felt such possibility, such joy--the beginning, she thought, of happiness. But that was happiness, she now knows. She should have known it then. She should have understood it sooner. She's been trapped in that moment ever since, looking down a road never taken, rueing the brambles that have long since overgrown it. She should have been living the life she's got.
The second message is that things are getting better. The three stories carry across four generations. In the first, Virginia Woolf kisses her sister in desperation at her situation. Miranda Richardson's reaction is a fit of hysterics, and she flees to London. In the second, Moore's housewife kisses neighbor Toni Collette to comfort her about an impending medical procedure that threatens her womanhood. Collette partakes, then pretends it didn't happen. In the third, Streep kisses lover-of-ten-years Allison Janney passionately, seeming to acknowledge in a moment Janney's years of living in the shadows of a memory and renewing a relationship that seemed troubled as the film opened. Danes gives a hug filled with forgiveness whose significance, in my opinion, outweighs all three kisses, showing that the next iteration of the story can contain not only a modicum of happiness but also forgiveness for those who suffered through the stories of the past and couldn't quite cope.
The Hours begins and ends with a suicide, with another in the middle for good measure. Yet it affirms the value of life, of moving on, of progress, of the notion that tomorrow will be better. It is a movie of depth and ideas. If you haven't seen it yet, you're missing out on one of the decade's most profound cinematic achievements.