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Customer Reviews of The Hours

A virtuoso film of power and beauty
The Hours made me think of MTV, of all things. For the most part I've decried the MTV effect on the editing of Hollywood films. Movies today don't sit still for more than a few seconds. They jump, they cut, they flash. The editing is razzle-dazzle, to draw attention to itself. (This is true of television, too--CSI, Lost, etc.) All this has effected--and generally not for the good, I feel--the type of subject matter one gets and the handling of subject matter on film. My heart is more often back in the 70s, when editing was slower, more subservient to the story. (One of the reason editing is more flashy today is because it's simply easier to do, so editors can't resist the temptation; to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.) <
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>But here's a film that's used changes in editing technique and technology for maximum advantage. The Hours really pushes our time perspectives: it doesn't just tell two parallel stories gradually, as Godfather II (1974) did; it doesn't flip scenes in time and space, as Plenty (1985) or The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1987) did; it doesn't tell a story backwards the way Memento (2000) did. The Hours cross-cuts three stories in rapid succession, to the point that some characters end sentences and actions that other characters began in different points of time and space. Oddly, rather than being confusing, this technique adds clarity, and technically that to me is The Hours' greatest achievement. This is the first film I've ever seen that I feel *totally* transcends time and space--as its subject matter would require to be successfully told. I don't know if it would have been possible in an age before non-linear editing, but it surely would have been a nightmare. Here technology advances art rather than compensates for the fact that there's little art to begin with. <
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>But with a screen adaptation from David Hare, whose work I greatly admire (from a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Michael Cunningham, whose work I admit I know little of), there undoubtedly will be plenty of art. And "plenty" is a good choice of words, because Hare wrote the stage play, and then adapted the screenplay, of Plenty, a work with many similar themes. The movie version of Plenty starred Merryl Streep. Here she is back, sharing the screen with two other heavyweight actresses who actually manage to steal the show from her just a bit (when that happens you know you're in a movie with good acting!). First there's Julianne Moore in a terrific turn as a populuxe-era housewife, polyester-pampered and smothered by suburbia, smiling through nervous tics as she dotes over her son (Six-year-old Jack Rovello in a performance that manages to convey all kinds of subtext). And there's the unforgettable, utterly transformed Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf, who in some ways comes across as the most centered and sane person in the story. And that's frightening, given that she takes her own life. (No, that's not a spoiler. It happens in the first two minutes and besides, anyone who doesn't already know VW committed suicide in real life should rent Anaconda 2 instead of this film.) And that's one of the most remarkable things about this movie: it does not moralize about suicide. Without saying much at all, it suggests that--perhaps--for some people it *may* be the best solution. Or at least not an altogether wrong one. It may not be the most popular point of view about suicide, but as Woolf points out in one of the movie's most moving scenes, it's not you but *I* who have to live this life. The movie is powerful, but refreshingly unsentimental. That is another of its strengths. <
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>By transcending space and time with rapid cuts, we get the universality of the issues even while the specificity of the situations is highlighted. Often when reading literature or listening to music, I've felt the creator reaching through time and space to talk to me directly, cutting through hundreds of years of history in between. This film finds a very solid way of suggesting that. <
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>Some people have criticized the movie for being pretentious, and in a way it could be argued that it is. The cross-cutting can get sharp at times--perhaps too much significance is found in cracked eggs and tossing food into the garbage pail, and there's a line regarding a dead bird--"Maybe it was its time to die, everything has a time to die" that is really heavy-handed in context. At the same time, somehow this material supports a certain artiness. This film *is* trying to wrestle with big themes, themes that most films (at least in America) rarely touch. How do three women across a span of time and social space each deal with the same issues? What does it mean when you have everything you could ask for materially but you are still unhappy? How does it feel to be forced into a lifestyle you don't fit into? What if the lifestyle you crave doesn't exist yet, or is unknown to you at the time? How do you cope? Thematically this film dealt with a lot of the same issues as American Beauty, only that film dealt with it at a high school level and this film is for grownups. <
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>All this is beautifully shot (maybe too beautifully--seems like every scene involving Virginia Woolf is filmed at sunset), with a delicate score by Philip Glass. At first I was going to say it's standard-issue Philip Glass, but while you have the expected minimalist ruminations here, there's also more of an emotional underpinning, an arc that follows the movies emotions very subtly. You'll have to watch the film several times before noticing this, or at least I did. (Actually, best to watch the movie several times before passing judgment, period. A lot of the content is only gleaned after the fact.) <
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>The DVD contains quite a few extras, and this from Paramount, which normally provides only bare-bones releases. There are two commentary tracks, one from the primary actresses and one from director Stephen Daldry and novelist Cunningham. There are also featurettes on the real Virginia Woolf, the production, the three actresses talking about their roles, Woolf's book Mrs. Dalloway which inspired Cunningham's novel, and Glass talking about his music. There's also the theatrical trailer--very well done. <
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>This DVD is in fact a model of what Paramount *should* be doing with all its releases. The print is crisp and bright, menus are easy to navigate, and the extras really enhance our understanding of the work. A great DVD of a great film. Buy it buy it buy it.

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honest, raw and real
Oh, my. This movie left me speechless. The editing, writing, acting, and directing were all incredible. The cinematic slicing from one storyline to the next might leave some audience members confused or distracted, but I found that it drew me into the movie, and into each of the interwoven stories. <
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>Despite the hype about Nicole Kidman's role, Julianne Moore was the one who stole the show and ultimately, made this film so impactful. The scene where she is baking the cake is one of the most memorable scenes in cinema history. <
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>This is not a happy movie. It will not make you feel good. Don't watch this movie if you and your date want to have a good time. Instead, watch this movie to see how a story should be told, to be reminded of the struggles we all have in life to love and be loved, and the impact the choices that we make have on those around us. This is one of the most honest movies I have ever seen and because of that, ranks as one of my top ten favorite movies of all time.

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A Literate Exercise in Kevorkian Feminism
This film genuinely surprised me, because from the outset I was determined not to like it at all and by the end of the film I was <
>totally absorbed in the tragic, shadowed lives of the characters, some of whom I liked, some I felt ambivalent toward, and some I loved. If you are a fan of Virginia Woolf as a writer and have a working knowledge of her life, you'll have to put reality aside for awhile and just see her as the puppet master of this despairing symphony. <
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>First we have perhaps the only performance worthy of the title from Nicole Kidman, probably due to heavy makeup, as the disturbed but also sharply lucid writer Virginia Woolf. Her facial expressions, mannerisms, and overriding obsession with death bring Woolf to life. Meryl Streep overacts a bit as the middlewoman between the frenetic lives of three troubled characters, still managing in the end to pull it off gracefully. <
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>Ed Harris really surprised me as the sickly poet Richard, a wild product of Freudianism if ever there was one. As with Kidman, he transcends his usual policy of turning in the same performance every film and shows he can actually act. <
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>What frustrated me is that he is so central to the film and yet his character is underdeveloped--all we really know is that he has been in touch with suicide from a young age and that his mother opted to destroy his life rather than take her own (I guess that's women's liberation) by leaving him as a young boy and also deserting her husband, who commits the malicious crime of being banal when talking over cake about how much he loves her. <
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>This is Julianne Moore, the most loathsome character in the whole film. At the end they try to make her human after Richard (the famous poet played by Ed Harris and her son) jumps out a window, but it doesn't work. She looks like an irresponsibile, cold old woman searching for a vague forgiveness she doesn't deserve. <
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>The scenes with Woolf and her caretaker/husband Leonard are all fantastic. This is a complex film, but I think the underlying message is that the phenomenon of suicide and similar acts that seem unconscionable are simply matters of choice. We can take our lives, leave our loved ones, etc, at will and there isn't anything to stop us. Torment can reach a point at which the most deeply felt instincts and values no longer matter to us. <
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>Not a movie I'd necessarily watch again, but certainly poetic and a must see. <
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