Post by ronnierocketago on Mar 1, 2006 21:46:25 GMT
The Hours
Stephen Daldry
2002 USA
Before you read further, this isn't a review by yours truely. No, I'm still in deadheat trying to work out simultaneously my reviews for the AV website on two major Oscar-nominated movies: REDS and Hitch's REAR WINDOW. However, I would like to introduce Jared Moffett, a freshman at my college who's rapidly increasing his film vocabulary, with good potential to be a fine critic himself in the future. Anyway, his cherry-popping review for AV is on THE HOURS, a film that I didn't see, nor did I have any serious interest of ever witnessing. However, Jared does make quite an emotional pimping of a review for a film that he digs, and one can't slash against him for the passion!
“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” This line opens the famous novel “Mrs. Dalloway,” written by Virginia Woolf. In the drama “The Hours,” the line is used to set the pacing of the film. From Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) writing the line in 1920's England to Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) reading it in 1950's California, all the way to modern day New York where Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) utters the line. That one line ties the three stories together.
In the performance that would win Nicole Kidman her Best Actress Oscar, Woolf is a woman forced into the solitude of the country in order to help her fragile mental health. This is based on the advice of her doctors as well as her husband (Stephen Dillane). The film opens with her suicide in 1941, but the bulk of her story takes place in 1923 just as she is beginning what will become her literary work “Mrs. Dalloway.”
Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is an unhappy housewife living each day for her family whom she does not love with hardly a care for her own well being. Her husband (John C. Reilly) is kind and loving man, but is perhaps too dense to attend to her needs and she views her son as more of a monster than child. Laura comes across a timid and almost frightening take on the archetypical 50's housewife.
Clarissa Vaughan is simply giving a party for her most beloved friend, much as the title character of Woolf’s book. Her friend Richard (Ed Harris) is a poet dying of AIDS. Clarissa is, of course, the one and only, the perfect: Meryl Streep. Of the three women, she is the most happy. Having been able to live her life as she wanted, she wants for nothing. She is living with her girlfriend, Sally (Allison Janney), and together they are raising a daughter (Claire Daines).
“The Hours” focuses on one single day in the lives of these three women, and in that day, their whole lives are reflected. The three women seem to be fragments of Mrs. Dalloway’s soul. None are completely based on the character, yet each shares certain qualities of her. Each woman in the film entertains guests, each is touched by suicide in some form, and each shares a kiss with another woman. Yet, the film is not about parties, suicide, or homosexuality. It is about looking life in the face and deciding how that life should be led. It is about how the choices we make effect others. It also shows how much freedom has been given to woman since the 20's.
The film is directed with graceful precision by newcomer Stephen Daldry, and is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham. Having read the book, I would have deemed it “unfilmable.” Yet screenwriter David Hare performs some obvious magic in his adaptation. The film flows perfectly between the three stories. In fact there is not a weak point in the film. “The Hours” is an example of what happens when filmmakers, actors, and technicians are working at the top of their game. I also have to mention the score by Phillip Glass. Depending on who is speaking, the score is either brilliant or atrocious. I am with the former. It is one of the best scores ever written for a film, totally unconventional.
Ed Harris has a monologue in the film where he says that as an artist, he has failed. He failed to capture life, everything that happens in a moment; and while I cannot say for him, I can say that “The Hours” does not fail. It is a flawless and moving cinematic masterpiece. After viewing it, I am sure; the audience will be forced to look upon their lives in a new way. To close this review and my thoughts on this film, I’ll quote Woolf herself “To look life in the face...always to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then...to put it away. Always the years between us...always the years...always....the love...always...the hours.”
Film Rating: ***** out of 5
CREDITS
Director
Stephen Daldry
Producer
Michael Alden
Robert Fox
Mark Huffam
Ian MacNeil
Scott Rudin
Marieke Spencer
Writer
David Hare
- based on the novel by Michael Cunningham
Cinematographer
Seamus McGarvey
Composer
Philip Glass
Production Designer
Maria Djurkovic
Editor
Peter Boyle
CAST
Nicole Kidman - Virginia Woolf
Julianne Moore - Laura Brown
Meryl Streep - Clarissa Vaughn
Stephen Dillane - Leonard Woolf
Miranda Richardson - Mrs. Vanessa 'Nessa' Bell
Lyndsey Marshal - Lottie Hope
Linda Bassett - Nelly Boxall
Christian Coulson - Ralph Partridge
John C. Reilly - Dan Brown
Jack Rovello - Richie Brown
Toni Collette - Kitty Barlowe
Ed Harris - Richard Brown
Allison Janney - Sally Lester
Claire Danes - Julia Vaughn
Jeff Daniels - Louis Waters
Stephen Daldry
2002 USA
Before you read further, this isn't a review by yours truely. No, I'm still in deadheat trying to work out simultaneously my reviews for the AV website on two major Oscar-nominated movies: REDS and Hitch's REAR WINDOW. However, I would like to introduce Jared Moffett, a freshman at my college who's rapidly increasing his film vocabulary, with good potential to be a fine critic himself in the future. Anyway, his cherry-popping review for AV is on THE HOURS, a film that I didn't see, nor did I have any serious interest of ever witnessing. However, Jared does make quite an emotional pimping of a review for a film that he digs, and one can't slash against him for the passion!
“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” This line opens the famous novel “Mrs. Dalloway,” written by Virginia Woolf. In the drama “The Hours,” the line is used to set the pacing of the film. From Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) writing the line in 1920's England to Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) reading it in 1950's California, all the way to modern day New York where Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) utters the line. That one line ties the three stories together.
In the performance that would win Nicole Kidman her Best Actress Oscar, Woolf is a woman forced into the solitude of the country in order to help her fragile mental health. This is based on the advice of her doctors as well as her husband (Stephen Dillane). The film opens with her suicide in 1941, but the bulk of her story takes place in 1923 just as she is beginning what will become her literary work “Mrs. Dalloway.”
Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is an unhappy housewife living each day for her family whom she does not love with hardly a care for her own well being. Her husband (John C. Reilly) is kind and loving man, but is perhaps too dense to attend to her needs and she views her son as more of a monster than child. Laura comes across a timid and almost frightening take on the archetypical 50's housewife.
Clarissa Vaughan is simply giving a party for her most beloved friend, much as the title character of Woolf’s book. Her friend Richard (Ed Harris) is a poet dying of AIDS. Clarissa is, of course, the one and only, the perfect: Meryl Streep. Of the three women, she is the most happy. Having been able to live her life as she wanted, she wants for nothing. She is living with her girlfriend, Sally (Allison Janney), and together they are raising a daughter (Claire Daines).
“The Hours” focuses on one single day in the lives of these three women, and in that day, their whole lives are reflected. The three women seem to be fragments of Mrs. Dalloway’s soul. None are completely based on the character, yet each shares certain qualities of her. Each woman in the film entertains guests, each is touched by suicide in some form, and each shares a kiss with another woman. Yet, the film is not about parties, suicide, or homosexuality. It is about looking life in the face and deciding how that life should be led. It is about how the choices we make effect others. It also shows how much freedom has been given to woman since the 20's.
The film is directed with graceful precision by newcomer Stephen Daldry, and is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham. Having read the book, I would have deemed it “unfilmable.” Yet screenwriter David Hare performs some obvious magic in his adaptation. The film flows perfectly between the three stories. In fact there is not a weak point in the film. “The Hours” is an example of what happens when filmmakers, actors, and technicians are working at the top of their game. I also have to mention the score by Phillip Glass. Depending on who is speaking, the score is either brilliant or atrocious. I am with the former. It is one of the best scores ever written for a film, totally unconventional.
Ed Harris has a monologue in the film where he says that as an artist, he has failed. He failed to capture life, everything that happens in a moment; and while I cannot say for him, I can say that “The Hours” does not fail. It is a flawless and moving cinematic masterpiece. After viewing it, I am sure; the audience will be forced to look upon their lives in a new way. To close this review and my thoughts on this film, I’ll quote Woolf herself “To look life in the face...always to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then...to put it away. Always the years between us...always the years...always....the love...always...the hours.”
Film Rating: ***** out of 5
CREDITS
Director
Stephen Daldry
Producer
Michael Alden
Robert Fox
Mark Huffam
Ian MacNeil
Scott Rudin
Marieke Spencer
Writer
David Hare
- based on the novel by Michael Cunningham
Cinematographer
Seamus McGarvey
Composer
Philip Glass
Production Designer
Maria Djurkovic
Editor
Peter Boyle
CAST
Nicole Kidman - Virginia Woolf
Julianne Moore - Laura Brown
Meryl Streep - Clarissa Vaughn
Stephen Dillane - Leonard Woolf
Miranda Richardson - Mrs. Vanessa 'Nessa' Bell
Lyndsey Marshal - Lottie Hope
Linda Bassett - Nelly Boxall
Christian Coulson - Ralph Partridge
John C. Reilly - Dan Brown
Jack Rovello - Richie Brown
Toni Collette - Kitty Barlowe
Ed Harris - Richard Brown
Allison Janney - Sally Lester
Claire Danes - Julia Vaughn
Jeff Daniels - Louis Waters