The Hours

Plot synopsis:
The film begins with British writer Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) putting stones inside her pockets before drowning herself (in real life, she walked in to the River Ouse on 28th March 1941).Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) lives in 1951 in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. Her husband, Dan Brown (John C. Reilly) is having a birthday. While he's at work, she makes a chocolate cake for him. Their son, Richie (Jack Rovello), asks if he can help her with it. As he sifts the flour, he wants to know why they are making the cake. "So Daddy will know we love him?" he asks. She answers yes and then he asks, "He won't know it, if we don't?" She answers him, "no". She is heavily pregnant with their second child. She is also reading a hardback copy of Mrs Dalloway, which is considered Virginia Woolf's best novel.Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) lives in modern 2001 New York and is planning a party for her prize-winning poet and close friend, Richard Brown (Ed Harris). Rich has been suffering AIDS for many years. He's a celebrated poet, and Clarissa is his editor. Clarissa worries about Richard a lot, and takes care of him as if she were his mother. Back at home, when she is preparing the party almost on her own, she has trouble with her girlfriend Sally Lester (Allison Janney), who has been unfaithful to her for some time. Several people appear for the party: Clarissa's daughter Julia (Claire Danes) and the most cherished of Richard's ex-boyfriends, Louis (Jeff Daniels), who has another relationship with a younger man but who is still a bit sad and melancholic.Back to the UK, where Virginia has just started to write a novel. She and her husband Leonard Woolf (Stephen Dillane) have moved to a village outside London, because London's hectic and frenzy life has affected Virginia's psychological health. She had tried to commit suicide twice, and used to hear voices. Leonard is busy with his printing press business, but he watches over her tenderly. One sunny day they are visited by Vanessa (Miranda Richardson), Viriginia's sister, and her two sons Quentin and Julian (George Loftus and Charley Ramm) and daughter Angelica (Sophie Wyburd). They are talkative and full of life, but their visit causes some anxiety to Virginia. To have lunch and tea prepared as she wants, having to force the cook and main maid Nelly Boxall (Linda Bassett) to travel to London to buy some things and then travel back is an ordeal to the lady of the house. Virginia has problems to make herself obeyed by their servants, especially by pushy Nelly. In real life, many pages on Woolf's diary were about Nelly, a person she used to fear so much that she wouldn't even dare to give the sack. This time Virginia had to be obeyed.Angelica finds a dead bird recently deceased at the Woolfs' garden. They bury it with much pomp, and this puts a bigger strain on Virginia's damaged emotions. At the end of the day, the four visitors go back to London merrily and Virginia and Leonard stay at home.Back in LA, Laura's friend, Kitty (Toni Collette) stops by. Laura complains about the cake not turning out right for her husband's birthday. Kitty says she doesn't understand why and that baking is easy to do. Kitty then says that it's ok, that everyone has different things that their good at. Kitty is dressed perfectly and seems to have the perfect life. Laura learns that Kitty is about to have surgery performed, as she is seriously ill, and that's why she couldn't have any children. Kitty starts to let her guard down and seems to get emotional over her problem. Laura and Kitty kiss each other. However, Kitty behaves and talks as though nothing had happened. After Kitty leaves, Laura throws the first cake away and then makes a perfect one. Meanwhile, Richie is sitting quietly while he watches his mother. She stops, looks at him and asks, "What?" while he looks on. She then takes him to a neighbor's (Margo Martindale) while she goes out, which Richie highly protests to. She proceeds to drive around. She sees the sign for a hotel and decides to book in. There, she takes out all the medicines that she took from the cabinet in the bathroom from her home and puts them on the bedside table next to her. She puts herself on top of the perfectly-made bed and reads Mrs Dalloway but falls alseep whilst reading her book. For her, death is like a flood, a river overgrown which will drown her from under the hotel bed. Suddenly she wakes up. She has just decided that she will wait for her second child to be born and then she will leave her family. When she comes back home as though nothing special had happened, Richie knows that she's lying. That night, Laura's husband dines with his family and eats the cake. He is a contented quiet men and says that the cake is delicious, and appreciates the fact that Laura has done it. He talks of how perfect his birthday was thanks to his family.In New York, Richard Brown (Laura's older son, now a grown-up man) wants to skip the party. He tells Clarissa that she has been the only reason he had to live, but that now, she has to let him go. Clarissa is a lesbian, but she wonders if she is still in love with Richard. However Clarissa is not strong enough to prevent Richard from jumping from the window. Instead of a party, she has to prepare Richard's funeral. Richard's mother, Laura Brown appears. She has become -according to Julia- a sweet old lady, not the monster as late Richard Brown used to describe her. Laura tells how she moved to Canada to lead an independent life as a librarian in Canada, but she won't apologise for the hurt she has caused to her family because her pain doesn't make any difference now to her late husband (who died of cancer) and children (her younger daughter had also died).In the UK, Virginia has changed her mind: her character Mrs Dalloway won't die, another character in her novel, a rambling poet married to his lonely Italian nurse, will do so. When Leonard asks her why somebody must die in her novels, she tells him "so that we all appreciate life." Anyway, Virginia tries to run away to London, but Leonard catches her while she is waiting at the train station. Virginia talks to him, and Leonard can't put up with her anymore: he promises they will be back to London soon. As the audience knows, Virginia will end up committing suicide there.And that's how the film ends: as it has begun, with Virginia Woolf committing suicide. In real life, she wrote some other novels after Mrs Dalloway and before committing suicide.

Tags: tragedy, dramatic, queer

Review:
Each story concerns a woman trying to define herself, to identify what she needs, and to find a way to get it.The 1920's story concerns Virginia Woolf's (Kidman) efforts to write her first successful novel, "Mrs. Dallaway"; which is the story of one day in the life of a woman named Clarissa Dallaway.
The first thing that may strike you about `The Hours' is that this film features more major characters who are gay, or at least bisexual, than any mainstream movie I can think of.
Based on the novel by Michael Cunningham, this is the powerful story of three women from three different time periods who have one thing in common: they are all leading lives filled with depression, despondency and despair, not because they are gay, mind you, but because they are human.First there is the famous early 20th Century author Virginia Woolf (played by Nicole Kidman), who is doing daily battle with her own mental illness, a disease that is slowly destroying her own life and the lives of those around her.
Clarissa spends most of her time regretting the loss of her one true love, the troubled poet, Richard Brown (Ed Harris), a gay man struggling with the final stages of AIDS, who wants nothing more than to rant against the injustice of his fate.Cunningham's story is, obviously, a symphony of despair.
He doesn't have much actual time on screen, but he makes his scenes count for all they're worth.`The Hours' is, obviously, a movie made for a specialized audience, one not easily scared off by a film with powerful themes and complex characters.
Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is living outside of London with her husband in 1923, recovering from mental illness and beginning work on her now famous novel, Mrs. Dalloway.
And then there is Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep), a present-day version of Mrs. Dalloway, so named by her one-time lover and now AIDS-stricken writer Richard (Ed Harris), living in New York and planning one of her renowned parties for him following his reception of a prestigious poetry award.
The sequences in each of their lives are carefully interwoven throughout the movie, enhancing their parallel struggles.The Hours is skillfully directed by Stephen Daldry and contains some of the finest performances of the year.
Meryl Streep's Clarissa Vaughn, though bound by memories of her past, is somewhat less restricted in her character as a modern New York editor living with her female lover and therefore has more opportunity to display her considerable emotional range.However it is Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Virginia Woolf that is the most mesmerizing and transforming performance in the film.
You cannot find three better actresses to portray these very complex individuals, in Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, and Nicole Kidman, any or all should be nominated for Oscars.
I'm easily going to name it as the best movie of 2002 and something tells me that in 12 months time, I will be saying it's one of the best movies of 2003 as well.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.
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 (with the word "Oscar" stamped on her forehead) delivers a performance of a lifetime playing a rather difficult role while disguising everything that is usually so associated with her.
When you have seen and come to understand the events that take place, by the time it concludes it will leave you feeling refreshed and perhaps a little better in touch with the emotions in your own life - just like good films should, but sadly, so rarely do...Easily 9 out of 10 - If you watch this one, you will not regret the time spent..
I mean after all the great movies she's been in in the 80's, she's still making exceptional films such as "Adaptation" and "The Hours", whereas other actors who were great 10 years ago pretty much lost it today *cough*Pacino*cough*DeNiro*cough, cough*.
And Adrien Brody's nose is real.In summary, THE HOURS, is a story about 3 bourgeois women, living in different time-frames, who are in good health and have everything they could possibly want or need.
In the last twenty minutes or so some things do happen, but it sure takes a long time to get there, and the wait isn't worth the effort.The story is supposedly about how the lives of three women all revolve around a novel by Virginia Woolf: Virginia Woolf herself (Nicole Kidman) as she struggles to write the book, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) as she contemplates suicide, and Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) as she deals with her ex-husband Richard (who wrote the boring fictional book) who is now dying of AIDS.
An outstanding depiction of chronic depression, the deep insight it often engenders, and the devastating impact this phenomenon has on peoples' lives.The actors must have sensed ahead of time that this was going to be a truly great movie, and all of them completely threw themselves into their roles.
Perhaps it will be Meryl Streep's impotent caretaker presiding over the last tortured days of Ed Harris' crumbling AIDS victim.Yes, folks, it's a non-stop laugh-o-rama.Maybe it'll interest you to see how these plot lines interweave over time and unfold through an interconnected history of pain and desperation.But if you're like me, you'll find your brain has decided to step out mid way for a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon on TV somewhere.Drama fails to compell or even convince when all the news is either bad or mundane.
"The Hours" (and I suppose the book on which it is based, although I haven't read it and don't much want to), reduces the vigor and complexity of Woolf's novel to some paean to self-pitying "feelings" about, oh, you know, time, life, all that stuff we're supposed to think is "universal." How about Woolf's meditations on war, gender, and violence in _Mrs. Dalloway_ and the facts (whatever one makes of them) that she was sexually molested as a child, that her suicide took place during another war, and that she and Leonard were on the Gestapo's hit list?
My recommendation is to watch the bits about Wolfe, fast forward through Moore looking like a depressed Stepford Wife, and also through the Streep subplot knowing she's a good actress but is being wasted on sup-par material, which unfortunately passes as "great" in today's Hollywood..
The lead performances - Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep,Julianne Moore, and Ed Harris - are so poorly conceived and directed as to be embarrasing.
This is the perfect stinkeroo movie for people whose lives are about as perfect-as-perfect-can-be and who have the desire, nay, NEED, to get a voyeuristic taste of depression, mental illness, frustrated sexual urges that MUST be met at ANY cost in order to feel "alive" or, to "JUST GIVE A PARTY!" Depressing to the nth degree, the faux depth of a mirror, Nicole Kidman wearing a Tom Cruise false nose, sporting his "Top Gun" squint while dragging on "Mary Jane" cigarettes, Ed Harris & Meryl Streep "ACTING!" for each other as a dramatic conversational style...its ALL too much!
I think if you like movies with a meaning, a great story, meaningful dialogs and excellent acting performances, you definitely should see "The Hours".9/10.
Don't blink while watching this or you may miss a moment of great acting in someone's look or voice inflection.All of the women are influenced by novelist Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, all are reading the book at the time the moment of life crisis comes to them.
Streep and Harris served as each other's 'beards' even marrying because only now are same gender couples fighting for that right.At first when I was watching The Hours I thought that maybe it should have just served as a three part film with individual stories.
But the reason the film unfolds as it does with the cross-cutting between time and plots will be made clear at the end.The Hours was up for a flock of Academy Awards including Best Picture, but it only won in one category, Best Actress for Nicole Kidman.
I am, now.The writer titled this movie "The Hours" because when you are done watching it, you know you spent hours, and hours, and hours sitting staring at a group of very drab, dysfunctional people.Nicole Kidman's performance is suitable for a suicidal woman suffering from severe depression, documenting that the author Woolf succeeded very well in passing her mental illness to others both in her family and among her readers.My wife chose to rent this movie based on critical acclaim.
"The Hours" deserves a directing nod perhaps, maybe best actress for Julianne Moore, and probably also something for Philip Glass' score (say what you will--it stood out and enhanced the mood), but otherwise I didn't find the film all that well written, even less entertaining, and in fact, I see little point to its ever having even been made.
We cut to 1951 and Julianne Moore basically reprises her role in Safe, this time influenced by the Woolf novel "Mrs. Dalloway" while stuck as a McCarthy era housewife.The thread running through the film is the suicidal lesbian aspect of the novel, the synchronicity between the women of the 3 eras, and the fact that Moore reads Woolf, and Moore is the mother of Rich, Streep's poet friend.We spend the rest of the film cutting back and forth between the 3 realities, the discontent, and it quickly gets boring as nothing really happens in the film.
Of the other two women who lived much later, one is reading the book and the other one is called Mrs. Dalloway by a friend who is a poet and dying of AIDS, probably because he thought that she was much like the character in the novel.
Three stories are told: Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) in 1925 writing "Mrs. Dalloway" and how she deals with mental problems; Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) in 1951 Los Angeles--she's reading "Mrs. Dalloway" and is having to deal with an adorable son and loving husband; Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) in 2001 NY planning a party for a friend (Ed Harris) dying of AIDS and her rocky relationship with her lesbian lover (Allison Janney).
Every single minimal part of this movie added to its perfection, down to the set design, types of flowers, and music featured in the film.Kidman, Streep, Moore, and Harris, the leading actors are all at the top of their game in what I think was their best work yet.
Especially Nicole Kidman, who I would have never thought to be a GREAT actress, brought me to tears several times during the film because her acting was so beautiful.
THE HOURS (2002) **** Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, John C.
David Hare's brilliant adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Michael Cunningham depicts three interlocking storylines all sharing the one common thread: Virginia Woolf's novel `Mrs. Dalloway' ping-ponging back in forth from 1940's where the suicidal Woolf (Kidman barely recognizable under a prosthetic nose; one of her finest roles to date) is in the midst of composing her work in question; 1950's with depressed homemaker Moore (equally compelling) preparing her loving husband's birthday celebration and contemporary book editor Streep (ditto) organizing a banquet party for her ex-lover and poet (Harris in a memorable performance) dying of AIDS, all three characters are imploding while their world's are spinning (metaphorically) out of control and their very lives' meanings in question to how trivial they truly are/aren't.
Woolf's life is in each one of the three caracthers.Let's begin with Moore for instance: in the movie, she's an awful mother, madly in love with a friend of hers, she neglects her own son and her behavior's repercussions are later terribly borne by her son- who, by the way, became a great writer, misunderstood and...sick - sick of the world around him and suffering from AIDS.
Reilly (in the same year he appeared in award winning movies like 'Gangs of New York', 'Chicago', 'The Good Girl' and 'The Hours'), Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Toni Collette, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Dillane and Claire Danes.
Not one of them is bad or annoying, they all do the best they can do in this movie.The acting, together with a great story perfectly edited, a fantastic direction by Stephen Daldry, make-up very well done (see Kidman and later on Moore), some nice photography and beautiful music composed by Philip Glass this is one of those movies you will remember..
Well Michael, thanks to your prodding, I went to see THE HOURS, staring the lovely and talented Nicole Kidman, and co-starring Meryl Streep; and Julianne Moore.
There is some of the best acting ever by Moore, Kidman, Harris, Streep, actually everyone in the film.
It is a tribute to the filmmakers that I left the theater wanting to see the movie again so that I could mine the depths of meaning, and better understand the lives of the characters.If you need additional incentives to motivate you, the film is worth seeing for performances alone.
Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, and Nicole Kidman are some of the great talents working in film.
I incredibly enjoyed the three powerhouse leading ladies in Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, and Julianne Moore but beyond those three, Ed Harris as Richard Brown and Jack Rovello as Richie were by far my favorites.This film is definitely worth the watch but be sure to find something pleasant to watch afterward!-- Oberrated.com --.
There is a particularly perfect spot where Meryl Streep's character discusses 'prescience', which is really the theme of the whole movie, and maybe even of Mrs. Dalloway...more to come on that.Bonus points: Nicole Kidman is unrecognizable, and really ceases to be herself while assuming Virginia Woolf, Phil Glass NAILS it on a score that ebbs and flows with the film's surrendering subjects and there's even a gorgeous scene where a hotel room quickly becomes what may or may not be Julianne Moore's final self-inflicted watery grave..
THE HOURS is a meandering drama about three women (Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep) of three different times, all living lives under the influence of "Mrs. Dalloway", a fictional character in a fictional novel.
The thing that makes it worthwhile through its slow paces is the quite memorable soundtrack, and off course as mentioned by many, the great performances (especially by Kidman, Moore and Ed Harris as Streep's dying friend); I've never been a huge fan of Kidman's work, but her performance as author Virginia Woolf is very good as her physical change is a simple invitation into the talented writer's troubled mind.
The Hours is probably best classified as a serious, somewhat highbrow and intellectual film, partly biography of the writer Virginia Woolf, focusing on a period of her life and the turmoil she endured in writing her book Mrs Dalloway, but also cleverly intertwining this with the impact the story has on the lives of two other women in different times.Woolf herself is played brilliantly and darkly by an almost unrecognisable Nicole Kidman, appearing dowdy unkempt and frail as befits a brilliant author on the edge of a nervous breakdown or worse.The movie actually begins with Woolf's suicide in the Thames in 1943 but then backtracks to her wrestling with the writing of Mrs Dalloway in Richmond in 1921.
Three stories are told at once: Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman), is writing "Mrs. Dalloway", which would become her masterpiece, in Sussex, England, 1923; Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), a pregnant housewife, is reading "Mrs. Dalloway" and contemplating suicide, in Los Angeles, 1951; and Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep), is sort of a modern Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway in New York, 2001, preparing a party for an ex-lover and long-term friend, the poet Richard (Ed Harris), who's dying of AIDS."The Hours" is not an easy film.
Julianne Moore plays Laura Brown, a woman living if the 50's who is reading the book and has with a life so depressing, (even though she has everything, and last but not least Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) a woman leaving in the actuality, preparing a party for her friend, a poet (brilliant ed Harris) dying with AIDS.
In all honesty, as much as I liked Nicole Kidman's performance, the movie was made for me with Julianne Moore's.
Nicole Kidman's performance was absolutely ASTONISHING in her role of Virginia Woolf.(Won Academy award for Best Actress)I think this movie is one of the greatest visionary movie's about how the simple life can get people to sanity.
We see how the lives of Woolf and two women reading her book 'Mrs. Dalloway' change in just one day, in a rather unique narrative structure which cleverly works thanks to the talented film makers.
I saw this film for the first time when I was fifteen and beginning to discover my own feminism.Nicole Kidman plays Virginia Woolf writing her famous novel Mrs Dalloway, Julienne Moore is Laura Brown, a 1950 s housewife reading Mrs Dalloway and Meryl Streep is Clarissa Vaughan, a modern-day version of Mrs Dalloway.
Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, and Julianne Moore all give extraordinary performances.
Julianne Moore surprised me a great amount, since I never thought she had the acting ability of Streep or Kidman, but here she is a strong performer.
Not everyone liked THE HOURS, and that may be the reason why it took only one Oscar- Best Actress for Nicole Kidman.