"The Hours," recent recipient of the Golden Globe for Best Picture, begins with an ending. The opening scenes of this brilliant film chronicle the last few moments of Virginia Woolf's life, as she leaves her husband and home, fills her coat pockets with stones, and walks into a river to end a life plagued by mental illness.
After this rather morbid beginning, the movie goes on to recount one day in each of three different women's lives: Virginia Woolf in the 1920s, Laura Brown in the 1950s, and Clarissa Vaughn in 2001.
Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is a talented but tortured author, constantly haunted by the voices that constitute one of the symptoms of her ailing mind. Her husband, Leonard (Stephen Dillane), has moved her away from the bustle of London to the suburb of Richmond in an attempt to quiet her demons. Virginia finds herself more depressed by the solitude of the country and longs to return to the city. The day in which the audience follows Virginia, she is beginning the first chapter of her novel, "Mrs. Dalloway."
Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is a middle-class housewife, mother of a son and five months pregnant. This particular day in her life is the birthday of her husband, Dan (John C. Reilly). Laura is a woman tortured by her gilded cage of a loving husband and overly- adoring son. She feels lost as a mother, never quite knowing what to say to her three-year-old son. The final straw that finally breaks Laura is a failed attempt to make her husband the perfect birthday cake. She drives her son to the babysitter's house and checks herself into an extravagant hotel in downtown Los Angeles to contemplate life and the possibility of death. Throughout her day, Laura is engrossed in the novel "Mrs. Dalloway."
Finally, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) is a successful editor living in New York City in modern day. Today she is planning a party for her best friend, Richard (Ed Harris), a talented poet who is near death because of AIDS and is about to receive a lifetime achievement award for his work. "Mrs. Dalloway," as Richard has always called Clarissa, throws herself into her party planning in an attempt to escape the ideas of both Richard's impending death, the demons of her past and the possibility that her life is not as blissful or meaningful as she would like.
The essence of the film is to tie the lives of the three women together, and the first and most obvious tie that joins them is a novel, which, fittingly, chronicles one day in the life of Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia is writing the novel, Laura is reading the novel, and Clarissa, in addition to the literary nickname given by her author friend, is living the life of the fictional Mrs. Dalloway who, of course, is also planning a party.
But something much deeper than the title of a book connects these three women. There is a communal sense of longing shared by the three. All of these women are held captive by something: Virginia by the voices of her illness, Laura by the responsibilities of being a wife and mother, and Clarissa by the need to appear to the world that she is a content person. All three long to escape their personal prisons.
Finally, there is the issue of the hours, articulated by Richard but felt deeply by all of the central characters. To all of these tortured women, there is the terrifying prospect of the hours: the hours that will inevitably drag on and on, hours that they will be forced to continue to live, the hour they are in and the hour after that, and the hour after that. Time will stretch on forever, and that idea of eternity is too much for these women to bear.
This film is an amazing feat, a feat of cinematography, of acting and of screenplay writing. I have never seen a book (which was written by Michael Cunningham) so well-adapted to the screen. It is risky business to attempt to translate a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to Hollywood, but director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter David Hare pull it off. The editing and cinematography are incredibly smooth, especially considering the rather difficult task of chronicling three different days in three different time periods and locations. The camera angles emphasize the small, everyday actions that make up life, from cracking an egg to reading a book, letting the audience see the significance that one day --- and the actions and emotions that make up that day --- can have on a person's life.
The characters in this movie could not have been cast more appropriately. Nicole Kidman, unrecognizable in her false nose, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep portray these very complex women beautifully. The supporting cast, including Ed Harris, Claire Danes and Allison Janney, performs as a perfect complement to a starring cast.
If you wish to see a movie that will make you look at life -- even the minutest details and actions that make up a single day -- in a completely new life, spare some time for "The Hours."
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
