Rating: 
Summary: Incredible, though not exactly party material
Review: Wow....this movie was incredible. Almost every actor had a top notch performance going. The only character whose feelings i didn't really understand were those of the man with AIDS. This is not a film for those who cannot take two and a half hours of thoughtful emotional things taking places in real life, not some mission impossible film. The ending of this movie is a bit unsatisfying, but in real life does anything really conclude itself into a nice sappy ending? And to those who say that the despair of the three women isn't plausible- because they're just a bunch of spoiled rich brats- depression can affect anybody of any race gender age and income level. Shame on you for thinking money is the key to all happiness. Just a warning to those who have not seen it: This is a very emotionally draining film. I have not seen a film that is more depressing than this one.. Dont watch it at a party because everybody will just be gloomy for the rest of the celebration.
Rating:
Summary: Worth Your Time
Review: I actually saw this movie before I read the book--something I rarely do. And for once, I'm glad it was in that order. The trio of actresses playing the roles did such a fabulous job, that I liked having pictures of them in my head as I read the book, and in retrospect, marveled at the film maker's ability to jump back and forth in time so seemlessly. A beautiful, thought-provoking and creative story. Well done.
Rating:
Summary: A literate and heartfelt film
Review: "The Hours," directed by Stephen Daldry, is an ambitious film that tells the interwoven stories of three different women in three different decades: writer Virginia Woolf (played by Nicole Kidman) in 1923, housewife Laura (Julianne Moore) in 1951, and Clarissa (Meryl Streep), who is caring for a dying friend, in 2001. First and foremost, this film is a triple triumph for three of the greatest actresses of our time. Kidman, Moore, and Streep give complex, emotionally rich performances. They are backed by an astonishing supporting cast that includes Toni Collette, John C. Reilly, and Ed Harris. Jack Rovello is particularly amazing as Laura's young son. The DVD version of the film is full of terrific bonus features, including documentary featurettes and two full-length commentaries (one by Kidman, Moore, and Streep; one by director Daldry and novelist Michael Cunningham). These great extras made me savor this beautiful film even more. "The Hours" is about many things: the magical, transcendent connection between writer and reader; struggling with illness, whether mental or physical; making choices in one's life; etc. The chronologically separate stories are skillfully and seamlessly woven together. The film presents a complex tapestry of human relationships and emotions. It offers no easy answers, but rather challenges the viewer. Yet in the end it is an emotionally full and satisfying journey.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark, dank, moldy, musty and full of itself.
Review: If you liked this movie, get a friggin' life. "The Hours" is one of the most horrible films that I've had to sit through in quite some time. The movie goes on forever and the score just magnifies the tedium of it all. I couldn't stop thinking of that scene in "Apocalypse Now" with Marlin Brando holding his head in his hands and muttering "the horror.....the horror".
Rating: 
Summary: they never should've made the movie
Review: even though all the actors did a great job and it is very faithful to the book, but you really wouldn't get this movie unless you read the book, which is much better and you get it more. The hours is really about inside one's mind, and no matter how hard you try, you just can't get that on screen. if you didn't read the book, the feeling you are getting from the hours is basically that there's something wrong with the women but you don't really know what, they just appear wrong. it's too awkward.
go read the book, if you didn't like the book, don't even bother to see the movie.
Rating:
Summary: "If it's a choice - Richmond and death, then I choose death"
Review: I've viewed this movie four times now, and there's always something different to see. The Hours is an absolutely superlative film, and is easily one of the best films of the past few years. Whether it is a meditation on suicide, a celebration of the gift of life, deference to literature, or a steadily evolving triptych of three angst-ridden women, The Hours packs a huge emotional punch. On this viewing, it is again easy to see why Nicole Kidman won the Oscar for best actress - her portrayal of the depressive, mentally ill Virginia Woolf who, on doctors orders, is banned from London and is confined to the suffocation of the country - will probably go down in history as one of the great moments of screen acting.
Based on Michael Cunningham's book, The Hours tells of one day in the life of three women, each from different time periods. Their lives intertwine and intersect in surprising ways and it is almost as though they are communicating with one another across the eons. They are linked by frustration, despair and the difficulty they have in finding places for themselves in the world. They also share a relationship to yet another fictional woman, the title character of one of Virginia Woolf's most famous novels, Mrs. Dalloway.
The film begins with Virginia Woolf (a riveting Nicole Kidman) narrating a suicide note to her husband. The year is 1941 and she has wrestled with madness for many years and feels another spell of it coming on. Rather than subject her husband to it, whom she says has made her so very happy, she drowns herself in a river. The story then flashes back to 1921 when she and Leonard, her husband (an excellent Stephen Dillane), are living a secluded life in rural Richmond. Virginia is terribly unhappy, and feels as though the country is contributing to her mental suffocation. This confinement is made all the more maddening when her lively sister (Miranda Richardson) comes to visit from swinging, sophisticated London.
Virginia's story acts as the framing device for the two other stories: Housewife Laura Brown (Julianne Moore, who should also have won an Oscar) is living in Los Angeles in 1951. She is drowning in a sea of marriage and motherhood. She loves her son and her husband (John C. Reilly), but when her best friend Kitty (an incredible Toni Colette) comes to visit, Laura realizes that life is not worth living, and considers abandoning her family. She contemplates suicide, but before she does this, she anxiously bakes a birthday cake for her husband and restlessly reads Mrs. Dalloway. Meryl Streep plays Clarissa Dalloway living in New York in 2001. Clarissa happily lives with her lover (Alison Janney) and is preparing a party for her best friend Richard (Ed Harris), who has just one a major poetry prize and is dying of AIDS. In 1921 Virginia begins to write Mrs. Dalloway, in 1951 Laura reads Mrs. Dalloway, and in 2001 Clarissa organizes party, just as Mrs. Dalloway did in the novel.
This circular, multi-layered narrative is held together with Phillip Glass's melodious, and unobtrusive musical score and some of the best editing techniques, which intimately inter-cut the stories by means of parallel gestures and words. Throughout the day each woman's life unfolds and the viewer soon learns that each is faced with certain choices about whether they should choose life over death. Both Laura, through her actions, and Virginia, though her writing, question why we should persist in holding on to our existence despite the pain it is sure to cause us.
The Hours is about those things we don't say because they don't fit into words; it's a film of lost feelings, bizarre, unscrambling emotions and trying to figure out what lies beneath the surface. We are all terribly alone, and that the relationships that we do develop between people are often intransient and frequently fragile. The Hours is a grand, melancholy and uneasy film that is multifaceted and full of meaning.
Unrecognizable in a false nose and Ann Roth's excellent costumes, Kidman has gotten a death grip on this character. The climax comes with her riveting monologue on a train station, where, with tears in her eyes, and the look of pain on her face, she desperately argues with her husband to return them to London. It's a scene of spellbinding emotional power, as we see Woolf's controlled turmoil of creativity, her all-consuming mental anguish, and perhaps a portent of the welcoming blissfulness of her death. Mike Leonard January 05.
Rating: 
Summary: Three guys
Review: If you see this movie, there are three guys you should not let slip past your attention: 1. Phillip Glass, whose score plays (for me) a much-more-than-ordinary role both in holding the meandering stories together and in guiding/evoking emotional response. Without this score, you'd have a much less powerful film. 2. Ed Harris, who plays the manic-depressive waves of his character with energy and vividness, and 3. Jack Rovello, Ed Harris' character as a child. His face carries the combination of incomprehension and intuitive knowing that young children can have. As for the rest of the film, you have a bunch of other reviews to read!
Rating: 
Summary: Haunting, stately
Review: This is a beautiful piece of work, and there's much to linger in the sad interweaving of the stories of three women whose lives are not quite fulfilled, without being tragic.
Still, it does take a while to get going. Don't put this on when you're feeling sleepy. The Philip Glass music sets the tone-- this is all aobut mood, stream of consciousness, atmosphere; this isn't a story with a whole lot of plot. Not that there isn't any: it's worth hanging in there because if you do, some of the story is heartbreaking. The little boy whose mother, in the fifties, is suicidal, calling "mommy" when she leaves him behind on an "errand" is wrenching and unforgettable. Somehow you can see he knows somehting terrible is pending.
The DVD extra features are terrific. Don't worry if you don't know or remember a lot about Virginia Woolf, for example; one of the extras gives you everything you need to know, and includes interviews with relatives as well as scholars. Stephen Daldry, the director, and David Hare, the screenwriter, both come from the theatre, and to some extent their reharsal method is quaintly direct with that methodology (I'm also from theatre, and had to laugh at the thought of a film crew using set pieces and taping the floor to rehearse-- not very common in film where time is so short)-- but they are full of interesting insights.
Michael Cunningham, who wrote the Pulitzer-prize winning book on which the movie is based, is also refreshingly down to earth, practical and humble, without being obsequious in his comments. I watched about half of the movie with the commentary on, and found it very entertaining. It's unusual to enjoy watching the commentary of a movie you didn't intend to see again, and evidence that the commentary is worthwhile.
All of the actresses have been praised for their work, and they all deserve it: Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman are all poignant and honest. Toni Colette, as a fifties housewive struggling to remain composed, is also wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Nicole Kidman? Who?
Review: Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore were equally as good if not better than Nicole Kidman in this movie. I really have to wonder why the academy gave the oscar only to Kidman.
And... as I watched the extra interviews with the actresses, I found myself thinking, "Who is that Nicole Kidman?" She looks nothing like the Kidman I know today, December 22nd, 2004. What did she do to her face? Botox? Today there is no expression in her face and her eyebrows are flat. THAT Kidman, in those interviews is the princess we all fell in love with in film. The faded blonde hair of late, the flat eyebrows and expressionless brow take the uncommon beauty out of her.
I gave this movie two stars for Mel Harris, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Kidman. It was a mesmerizing film, but it was ultimately too in love with itself.
Rating:
Summary: luminous
Review: What an extraordinary movie with extraordinary performances by the three actresses, particularly Meryl Streep who is breathless and gorgeous in this film. If you don't 'get' this film, you may have no heart at all.
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