The Hours
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Movie Reviews of The Hours
Movie Review: Slipstream Moments
Summary: 5 Stars
This hotly anticipated film closely adapted from the novel written by Michael Cunningham is a triumph! The film takes place at three different times of a century. In the 1920s, Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is living a fussy, closely monitored life in Richmond and has begun writing her novel Mrs. Dalloway. In the 1950s, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is a housewife in Los Angeles baking a cake for her husband's birthday. In 2001, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) is a New York City editor organizing a party for her old friend who just won a major poetry award. What we are given is a day in the life of each of these women. The film flips between these different points in time that are clearly demarcated by their settings. You may assume that this would make the individual stories confusing, but the women's lives are linked by various themes making transitions between them seem almost effortless. While each women is dealing with particularly difficult issues in their lives, all of them struggle with similar larger issues, primarily oppression, love and death.This is a film about and probably for women. As Jeanette Winterson said when discussing this film, "I am really not sure that most men have evolved far enough to spend two hours without their own company." Of course, this is not always the case. The story is weighed down at times by morbidity. But within the context of these three women's stories, they have good reason to be thinking strongly about the possibilities of escaping these cage like identities. Traditionally for women, the only escape has been death. However, each of these women find a unique way to deal with lives they find too difficult to take. The progressive avenues of escape taken through time leaves an ultimately optimistic feeling. All three of the leading ladies deliver fantastic performances. The director Stephen Daldry focused on subtle facial and hand gestures which illuminate the internal struggles these women are facing, but are unable to speak about. They have a tremendous supporting cast with powerful performance particularly from Stephen Dillante, Toni Collette and Jeff Daniels. Each scene is emotionally carried by the powerful score of Philip Glass music. Rarely has a novel been adapted for the screen so competently. This is a beautiful, artistic film not to be missed.
Movie Review: Roll up your sleeves for this one!
Summary: 5 Stars
I had to chuckle when I saw the disparate reviews, from those who loved and those who hated The Hours. I did not know what to expect when I saw The Hours. I had not read the novel, because I do not usually read any contemporary fiction. Perhaps the planets were aligned in some such way, but I was completely floored by The Hours! There are so many layers, you could keep peeling and peeling and dissecting for a very long time. And, if you enjoy that sort of thing, then it is right up your alley. If you don't enjoy introspection, and symbolism, and the study of the human experience, then you will be bored to tears! I happen to love that sort of thing. Asking questions - - why am I here, who am I, what does it all mean - - and questioning my roles - - wife, mother, friend, daughter, sister, employee, volunteer, female extraordinaire! - - and wondering `What If?' every now and then... In The Hours, though, the layers are thick and heavy, so expect to work. And if you are prone to depression, this could possibly bring you lower, although I found it rather satisfying and uplifting by the end of it. While I personally did not agree with many of the choices made by the characters, they were choices nonetheless, life paths anyone could take, and not without repercussions. As for the performances, every actor was superb. Nicole Kidman has my full respect as an actress due to this film. I completely forgot it was Nicole Kidman while I was watching the film. Julianne Moore was fantastic as the housewife trapped in the 50s, and Meryl Streep managed to excellently portray the modern feminist who is just as scared and trapped inside as the 50s housewife. The little boy who played Julianne Moore's young son was superb - - he conveyed so much just through his eyes. Such excellent casting all the way around. The music was also a huge influence on the film, haunting and repetitive, subtly infusing the atmosphere without being intrusive. The whole experience was just enthralling!
It has been nearly 6 months since I saw The Hours, and I still think about it. I've now read the novel, and have an even more in-depth feel for what it is all about. I don't feel the time spent was an exercise in futility, I think I am more enriched and receptive because of The Hours.
Movie Review: Seriously, this is one of the best movies I've ever seen.
Summary: 5 Stars
Boasting an exemplary cast, purposeful direction, authentic production values, and a haunting musical score, The Hours is a sincere praiseworthy attempt to adapt Michael Cunningham's prize-winning novel to the screen. It is provocative, introspective, hopeful, and at times downright desolate. As evidenced by the opening sequence, the value of life itself is called into question and it sets the tone for the rest of the film.
The complex storyline focuses on one day in the lives of three women from three different generations. Based on a Michael Cunningham novel, "The Hours" combines a real life story (Virginia Woolf), a re-written one (Laura Brown's interpretation of "Mrs. Dalloway") and an original creation as well (Clarissa Vaughn). We get three different stories, each fascinating on its own edited together into a complex, intriguing drama that will have you in tears a couple of times before the ending credits start rolling.
What glues the stories together is "Mrs. Dalloway" - the book. Virginia Woolf, a suicidal author in England (1923) creates the character, the novel inspires a lonely housewife in Los Angeles (1951) and a 'trivial' 2001 New York City gay woman is called "Mrs. Dalloway" by her dying friend who points out the similarities between them. Later on, we find out another connection between the characters. It's clear that the thoughts that have been put into this movie go beyond the screenplay and acting. Things like the settings & clothing for each story help compile a perfect, believable plot.
However, what really left me with awe was the PHENOMENAL acting. Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Virginia Woolf that is the most mesmerizing and transforming performance in the film. She is completely submerged as the famous novelist of the early twentieth century. Her performance allows her characterization of Virginia Woolf to fully emerge. Audiences will not recognize her, nor should they.
Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore also gave impressive lead performances with memorable emotional scenes. Ed Harris, Claire Danse, John C. Riley, Alison Janney & Toni Collette all did an amazing job in this exquisite masterpiece. This movie had the BEST ensemble cast I've ever seen. Absolutely amazing.
Movie Review: A Trio of Oscar Efforts
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Hours" is one the greatest examples in film history of three actresses in the same film achieving Oscar level pinnacles. While only one, Nicole Kidman, would secure a statuette for "Best Actress," Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep performed at an equivalent level of brilliance.Based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Michael Cunningham, the story revolves around the creative act of novelist Virginia Woolf, played by Kidman, writing her most memorable work, "Mrs. Dalloway," along with the impact that work had on other people at later points in time. The book is referred to as a point of reference by Julianne Moore in her suburban Los Angeles housewife's life of 1951 and by Meryl Streep in 2000 Greenwich Village New York, where she functions as a book editor and seeks to comfort former lover Ed Harris, a brilliant poet who is dying of aids. While Streep seeks to enhance Harris' desire to live by telling him that, by taking his pills he can live a good while longer, he reflects on what he sees as the hopelessness of his condition.
We ultimately learn that the little boy who fears that his mother, played by Moore, will leave him, is actually Haris in his youth. Feeling the same doubts about life that Kidman experiences as Woolf while she writes what will become her most famous work, Moore goes to a hotel room with the idea of swallowing enough pills to commit suicide. Moore decides not to go through with the suicide attempt, but later, after she has the child she is carrying, leaves her husband, her newly born daughter, and young son, who later, as a sensitive poet and novelist, carries the burden of that rejection with him.
Top British dramatist David Hare adapted Cunningham's novel superbly, giving a brilliantly cerebral written work a visual feel, while Steven Daldry directed with a skilled but never interfering hand, letting the brilliant performers establish their own respective voices. What makes this film so unique is the way that a creative artist's impact is shown through the lives of people at another point in time living in another country, who are sensitively attuned to the pain the author felt as she grappled with the question of life and whether or not to continue living it.
Movie Review: Fantastic film, but I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone
Summary: 5 Stars
for the simple fact that this is a very intense film focusing on the debilitating suicidal depression of three very different women in three very different time periods. See this film on your own merit if AND only if it really is a film you want to see. Do not go by recommendations or the fact that it is one of the major (and well deserved) Oscar worthy contenders this year. In some ways, `The Hours' reminds me of Fassbinder's `The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant' another film I absolutely love but would never recommend to anyone. Although each film is completely different from each other, both films are about successful women and both explore similar themes of homosexuality, suicide and depression (common themes for Fassbinder who eventually succumbed to an untimely end through suicide). So it's understandable why many will not enjoy `The Hours' and why I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't already want to see it on their own merit.I won't go into the particulars of the film; by now everyone pretty much has an idea of what `The Hours' is about. Instead I will say why I liked it so much. What I found to be the most fascinating aspect of this film is how all the different stories tied together maintaining such an amazing linear quality. Throughout the film dramatic events that occur in one scene are carried over and applied seamlessly to the characters in the next scene. The flow between characters and time periods is flawless, further accented by the engaging qualities of all the characters. I also enjoyed how there were several events, three of which instantly come to mind, that are never addressed throughout the course of the film. Instead, they're left up to your own interpretation in spite of their importance to the story. I also enjoyed Toni Collette's cameo role as Julianne Moore's buxom 50s neighbor Kitty. Collette is such a compelling and brilliant actress that I enjoy any film she appears in. Also, one reviewer felt the Laura Brown character's decision was despicable and disgusting yet that's what makes this such a good film: it makes you feel. Whether or not you like this film you will come away feeling something. My eyes hardly stayed dry throughout the entire film. Excellent.
4 ½ stars.