The Hours
(2002)
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Based on the Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Michael Cunningham, THE HOURS employs Virginia Woolf's classic novel and central character, MRS. DALLOWAY, as its foundation and inspiration. Spanning three different eras, during one day, the film focuses on the parallel lives of three women joined in their depression, alienation, and search for love. Nicole Kidman, wearing a prosthetic nose, is virtually unrecognizable as the tortured writer Virginia Woolf whose ongoing battle with mental illness eventually led to her tragic suicide in 1941. The film begins with the moment of her suicide and flashes back on her life and work as she crafted her most memorable character, Clarissa Dalloway, in 1923. In 1950's California suburbia another woman, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), struggles with alienation and depression. Trapped by her clinging young son and an adoring husband whom she does not love, the desperate woman tries to prepare for her husband's birthday but cannot stop reading MRS. DALLOWAY. Finally, in modern day Manhattan, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep), a lesbian who lives with her lover (Allison Janney) and her daughter (Claire Danes), struggles to prepare a party for her ex-husband (Ed Harris) who is dying of AIDS. Director Stephen Daltry uses beautiful overlapping editing to sew the women's interwoven stories seamlessly together. At the core of this profoundly moving film is the trio of award-winning actresses who grace the screen with their bold and awe-inspiring performances. |
Screenshots
Despite being director Stephen Daldry's follow up to Billy Elliot, much of the initial interest in this drama has focused on Nicole Kidman's prosthetic nose — as renowned English writer Virginia Woolf, she is virtually unrecognisable. The physical transformation she has undertaken for the role is somewhat distracting at the beginning, but as David Hare's magnificent screenplay unfolds, it is the drama's beauty and eloquence that take centre stage. Adapted from Michael Cunningham's complex novel, this poignant exploration of longing, desire and regret interweaves the lives of three women from different eras. Kidman's neurosis-driven Woolf is the most developed and compelling character, but co-stars Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep are also interesting, as a stifled 1950s housewife and a present-day lesbian book editor, respectively. Had Moore and Streep's scenarios been made weightier and less clichéd, the feature would have been a masterpiece. As it stands, it's a sophisticated and deeply poetic triumph that marks out Daldry as a talent to watch.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Deft, engrossing film built around the suicide of Virginia Woolf and the themes of her novel Mrs Dalloway, which connects with two other women: one is an unhappy housewife in the 50s, the other a woman caring for a former lover, a homosexual poet d