The Hours is a triple tracked story about three women of different time periods all of whom have to grapple with the idea of suicide. 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. Who would be more influenced by the book than its author Virginia Woolf played here by Nicole Kidman. Her story of suicide is well known and maybe she did reexamine her own writings in Mrs. Dalloway.
The other two stories are from 1951 Los Angeles and 2001 New York. In Los Angeles Julianne Moore seemingly the perfect suburban housewife feels trapped, especially in those times of forced conformity. She's married to your typical suburban dad in John C. Reilly and has one kid and one on the way. But she's reading Mrs. Dalloway and questioning herself.
The modern story in New York involves literary agent Meryl Streep who is taking care of an ex-husband who now has AIDS and is in the final stages. Streep is a lesbian and ex-husband Ed Harris is a gay man. But back in the day people, in fact in all three days, people felt a need to conform to societal norms. It was of course strongest in Virginia Woolf's time in the United Kingdom between the two World Wars. 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. Her portrayal of Virginia Woolf is an exercise in restraint and intelligence, her psychosis is very subtly suggested. Some might have chosen to chew the scenery, but in Nicole's case less turned out to be very much more.
Ed Harris was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Julianne Moore for Best Supporting Actress. Moore's appearance in that category was strictly to increase the chance that she or Kidman would win and it worked. But truth be told the three women all have about equal screen time. Harris is unforgettable as a dying man with the AIDS related dementia, questioning all around him including his continued existence.
The Hours is restrained, literate, and wonderful and gives lie to the fact that great screen roles for women just aren't being written.
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. Who would be more influenced by the book than its author Virginia Woolf played here by Nicole Kidman. Her story of suicide is well known and maybe she did reexamine her own writings in Mrs. Dalloway.
The other two stories are from 1951 Los Angeles and 2001 New York. In Los Angeles Julianne Moore seemingly the perfect suburban housewife feels trapped, especially in those times of forced conformity. She's married to your typical suburban dad in John C. Reilly and has one kid and one on the way. But she's reading Mrs. Dalloway and questioning herself.
The modern story in New York involves literary agent Meryl Streep who is taking care of an ex-husband who now has AIDS and is in the final stages. Streep is a lesbian and ex-husband Ed Harris is a gay man. But back in the day people, in fact in all three days, people felt a need to conform to societal norms. It was of course strongest in Virginia Woolf's time in the United Kingdom between the two World Wars. 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. Her portrayal of Virginia Woolf is an exercise in restraint and intelligence, her psychosis is very subtly suggested. Some might have chosen to chew the scenery, but in Nicole's case less turned out to be very much more.
Ed Harris was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Julianne Moore for Best Supporting Actress. Moore's appearance in that category was strictly to increase the chance that she or Kidman would win and it worked. But truth be told the three women all have about equal screen time. Harris is unforgettable as a dying man with the AIDS related dementia, questioning all around him including his continued existence.
The Hours is restrained, literate, and wonderful and gives lie to the fact that great screen roles for women just aren't being written.