Rating: 
Summary: This May Be The Best Dramatic Movie...
Review: The Hours may be the best dramatic movie I've ever seen. I watched it last night at the AMC Ahwathuki 24 with my girlfriend. During the first twenty minutes two couples up front in the theater got up and left and I could only guess from their grumbling and non-verbal communication that they were not pleased with the film. They kind of derisively laughed at the screen. It's that kind of movie.At its core, The Hours is simply about a human being's capacity/incapacity to reciprocate love in the face of death. My girlfriend said she couldn't identify with any of the characters in the movie except Claire Dains because they mostly can *not* reciprocate love. Death is inevitable, so why give back love. I thought it was pretty callous and not true of her genuine character. My girlfriend and I talked about the film and our lives and ultimately I reminded her that she, too, felt that way once -- after her divorce -- she wanted to die, and no longer believed in love. It's a universal theme and in the case of Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore and Ed Harris's characters in the film, they represent an extreme -- they just can *not* give back love in the face of death. And ultimately this is not what most of us want to hear from a movie or a book. We want to know that people can triumph in the face of a day-to-day life that ends in death. To quit, simply doesn't make sense to a great many people (to the point of denying such despair could even be real), and that might be why people who feel negatively about The Hours do feel negatively. Meryl Streep's character is the most realized in that the character drawn for her *sees* both sides of the range (love in the face of death) and comes to some kind of affirming end. My own opinion is that the ending was the only place in the film that breeched being too melodramatic, but endings -- quite literally -- are difficult. I would absolutely love to see Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep in another film where they were actually on-screen together for more time. The final scene between them was so intense as to be palpable. They are simply two of the best actors I have ever seen. Nicole Kidman was so good I did not even recognize it was her playing Virginia Wolff for the first few minutes in the film. However, her vehicle in the film was less real to me, in part, because of my own limitations regarding a capacity for love. Perhaps, I just would rather not admit it. A complex film. Stacey
Rating: 
Summary: Almost dead center
Review: The three big names get rave reviews from most. The best supporting performance however is not mentioned in reviews I saw, the one-scene job done by Toni Collette. A great actress. A beauty who hides her looks inside her roles, as in ABOUT A BOY and as the mom in that awful overrated flick about a boy who "sees dead people." Some reviews call it sad. It is dark, not sad. Disturbing, not hopeless. Sometimes it feels like a stage play shot with a mobile camera and other times is more cinematic. The missing fifth star, the off-center part, is there is a slight air of hokiness, of "how we doin'?" about it, a trifle self-consciousness perhaps. And don't miss the score by Philip Glass, some of it also off-center because self-imitative. Claire Danes? I think she did her best work when she was 15 or so on a TV series, "My So-called Life." A mature and finished teenage artist, she seems to have grown into an incomplete adult artist. Skillful for sure; but the greatness gone, thus, off-center, but more so than the movie. I await her return to greatness. (And I plan to see the new Spike Jones movie with the once-perfect Anna Paquin and see how she's doin' as a young adult or aged teen.) The three leads' acting styles do not quite mesh either, which may be another aspect off-centeredness, or may be because they reflect the difference of the characters they play. Never mind. See THE HOURS.
Rating:
Summary: 1923 1941 1951 and 2001
Review: Feelings for this film are likely to be felt strongly in either direction but are unlikely to leave a person ambivalent. Before getting to the more familiar names that appear in this film there is one actor who has the distinction of appearing in more noted films this year than any other actor or actress I can think of. John C. Reilly is currently appearing not only in, The Hours", but also, "Gangs Of New York", and, "Chicago", a rather impressive series of roles for one person in a single year. I believe I have the different years the film takes place within correct at the head of these comments, they are shown once at the beginning of the film, but are revisited throughout the course of the movie. What every time period has in common is excellent acting and I have no idea how the primary actress is defined with the rest as supporting. I did not have a stopwatch but the time shared onscreen between Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, and Julianne Moore is not largely different in length. I would guess that Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep are even closer as a pair, than the trio that I mentioned, in screen time. On the poster for the film the primary actresses are listed left to right in reverse alphabetical order, and Amazon has Ms. Streep listed above Ms. Kidman. Perhaps contracts determine supporting versus starring roles for I cannot make sense of how the definitions are determined. Nicole Kidman is excellent but there were many periods I felt this film was focused on Meryl Streep's character. Twenty five names are listed as the cast roster with Ed Harris listed 18th. Again I am lost. Remove Ed Harris from the film and the result is there is no film. His "presence" in multiple time frames is a key to the picture; he and Meryl Streep are the majority of what this film is about. Additional characters revolve directly around these two players I mention. The film is far too brief to present the complex series of relationships that are only hinted at. When this is combined with love that lasts a lifetime between three people, with the triangle's apex a man, who at one point loves another man, then the women, this is almost a movie in itself. And I just touch on one of many complex, involved relationships that are far too gently remarked upon. And finally, no amount of clever dialogue like, "the poet must die", can tie these widely separated events in these lives together. There are films that need space to tell their story. This film had as much talent as any in recent memory; why not use such people to their fullest? There are films that are remarkable that do not have a single marquee name much less a group with the credits this film has. However, this film has made the mark it has made with this cast, without them you would never have heard of this film. As it is, the film is only being shown in just over 550 theaters as I write this. I have no idea how to even define who qualifies as the best actress within the confines of this film much less the best actress for 2002. Trying to compare this with the other apparent frontrunner, "Chicago", is almost literally impossible.
Rating:
Summary: Sentimental, timeless, and spellbinding! A must-see!
Review: Mr. Daldowray truly gives homosexual cinema a bad name. While I have as much of a sweet nostalgic soft spot as the next girl for Brett Somers' matchgame fashions of the 1970's, I honestly despised every tedious second of this long-winded portrayal of these three whiny, self-loathing, emaciated white women. That an overly indulgent queer club kid with a panache for psychodrama could nonjudgmentally tell the story of three unhappy lipstick lesbians goes without saying, but where were the rainbow flags and the costume parties and the line dancing and the tennis coaches? Where were Rosie O'Donnell and Liz Smith and Fannie Flagg? Surely all of history has had more than its fair share of gay women of a certain age who aren't always in the limelight. The real Virginia Wolf was hardly the prolifically chainsmoking antisocial workhorse galpal that Daldroway makes her out to be, nor was she a genius - indeed most of her work is at best indistinguishable from that of V.C. Andrews. As a book, The Hours arguably did for Virginia what The Wind Done Gone did for Aunt Jemima. As a movie, The Hours is a thinly disguised, self-justificatory, and failed attempt to elevate the task of film-making to be on a par with the art of writing. Whatever hypothetical merit that equation might have, it doesn't take the brains of a misguided Jewish relativity theorist to observe that the hours spent watching this film pass noticeably more slowly than those watching reruns on SoapNet. Perhaps Mr. Daldry could put his wasted talents to better use directing a remake of "Flowers in the Attic," or "How to Make an American Quilt," or doing Slim-Fast commercials.
Rating:
Summary: I didn't want it to end
Review: I was a bit hesitant about seeing this film, knowing the grim content ahead. But oh, what a beautiful film! Director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter David Hare have cleverly woven 3 delicate stories that all turn on Virginia Woolf's book "Mrs. Dalloway". History tells us that Woolf suffered from many mental breakdowns, the first of which occured when her Mother died. Consequently, the film begins after her husband Leonard has moved her out to the countryside where her every move can be supervised (she has already attempted suicide several times at this point). Virginia is suffocated by the quietness of the country and longs for the numbing hustle and bustle of London. Even still, she is working on her novel "Mrs. Dalloway". Almost immediately, we are transported to 1951, where Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is reading "Mrs. Dalloway". She is wife to a loving and doting husband (John C. Reilly)and Mother to a little boy, while being 5 months pregnant with her next child. Laura feels trapped and suffocated with her life, and sees herself as Mrs. Dalloway- confident on the outside, yet a wreck on the inside. Just when you start getting into this vingette, Daldry sweeps you into New York 2001, where Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) is Mrs. Dalloway personified, planning a party for her ailing poet friend (Ed Harris, who will very probably get an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actor). Every performance is a gem, and you'll find yourself amazed at how easily one decade transitions into another. Nicole Kidman defenitely deserved the Golden Globe for this performance, and hopefully, will get nominated for an Oscar. This very well could be her year. In any event, "The Hours" is gorgeous- don't be put off by the serious content. This is a film you should not miss.
Rating:
Summary: The Hours: Lives of Quiet Desperation
Review: This is an excellent film made by Stephen Daldry. Superb writing distinguishes it from novelist Michael Cunningham and its adaptation into film by experienced screenwriter David Hare. In lesser hands, this delicate, poetic work probably would have been crushed. That they utilized an ultra talented ensemble cast sealed this into solid A territory. It is about the quiet desperation that is the way we lead our lives in the hours allocated to our existence. The only thing that ends the Hours is Death and, for some, like Virginia Woolf, the Hours become so untenable that death must be hastened along with suicide. The women who follow Woolf in the future face the same battles with The hours even though we/they have the benefits of more modern existence. Some universals never change though and The Hours are etched in stone as a universal. Every actor is first rate but the two to be singled out for breathtaking performances are Nicole Kidman as Woolf and Ed Harris as a dying poet. I was able to more fully realize how talented Kidman is by not being blinded by her movie star looks. She drastically changes her appearance so as to become Woolf and she also is the most extraordinary on showing what it is like to live The Hours. Her scenes with a dying bird and at the train station with her husband are incredible. Harris is just getting better and better from role to role. Seemingly there is no role beyond him and he doesn't care how likable or unlikable his character is. Whatever he needs to do to get the job done, he'll do it. In this case, he is desperation and dying personified as a poet dying in New York City of AIDS under the bleakest of circumstances, who turns out being linked to all three of our desperate women in one way or another.
Rating: 
Summary: The Hours
Review: If you weren't depressed when you walked in to see this movie, you certainly will be by the time you finish it. Many customers walked out early and I wish I had. What a waste of talent.
Don't bother to go see "The Hours". believe me you will find it
vague, disjointed and distasteful. No one was happy, not even the serious little boy. He was so worried about his mother that he could think of nothing else. What a downer this movie is.
Rating:
Summary: "Someone has to die . . ."
Review: ". . . that the rest of us should value life more." An unpleasant thought -- but then Stephen Daldry's brilliant *The Hours* is an unpleasant film, inasmuch as it "pleases the crowd". However, it offers pleasure of a much more difficult sort -- aesthetic and intellectual. Because there is no intelligent cinema geared toward the ladies out there, *The Hours* HAD to be a masterpiece; HAD to feature three of our greatest actresses (Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman); HAD to be about Virginia Woolf Herself, the modern literary touchstone of what we loosely call "feminism". Nothing else, apparently, would do. Perhaps Hollywood figures that the "Lifetime Channel" supplies enough basic entertainment for women that's about women, and is thus free to pursue sequels to *The Matrix* and *Shanghai Noon*. (Safe to say that consumers of such stuff will find nothing of interest here.) Oh, and the movie also HAD to be based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, just to add a 2nd layer of literary pedigree. The miracle is that the movie is this good. The possibility of slipping into pretention is avoided by the sheer competence of the cast, the tastefulness and subtlety of the direction, the occasionally luminous photography, and especially the difficult structure of this story. It's about three different women in separate eras: Nicole Kidman as Woolf, fighting insanity and trying to write *Mrs. Dalloway* in the 1920's in Richmond, England; Julianne Moore as an unhappy wife in L.A.'s suburbs during the Fifties; Meryl Streep as a present-day New Yorker named Clarissa who's preparing a party for former lover Ed Harris, a bitter man dying of AIDS who has just won a poetry prize. The movie seamlessly interweaves these three stories. Moore, in the midst of chronic depression (and currently reading *Mrs. Dalloway*, whose fictional main character ALSO prepares for a party), is also preparing for an occasion -- her husband's birthday, enlisting her pensive son to help bake a cake. But it's not just parties that the vignettes have in common: there's also the urge toward self-destruction; discontent at the disappointments of life; the simple travails of being a woman in any era; and the not-unqualified "success" that's earned after bitter struggling against self and society. This is a magnificently ambitious film. I'm sorry to see it being hijacked by dogmatists from the Left (Gloria Steinem's divisive comments in praise of the film have been particularly ridiculous) as well as the knee-jerk reactionary blather about the "cultural elite" from the Right. But *The Hours*, like any great work of art throughout history, will survive the blabbermouths. It's the most aesthetically pure, difficult American movie of 2002. Difficult to love; very easy to admire.
Rating:
Summary: I must defend this film.
Review: This film is the first film in a long time where I actualy agree with the film that may or may not bring home the big Best Pic award at the Oscars. Normally that prize is given to the film that's the most showy and obvious. This film had the power to do something very few films can do today and that is, give the audiece some more credit and give them some more to think about afterwards. Everyone is wondering WHY they were so sad. In the great tradition of Mr. David Lynch I believe that we don't always need to be spoon fed the answers. Haven't you ever been sad and could not for the life of you figure out why? The human person is far more complex then to just sum things up in a neat package. It's far too easy to dimiss this film as a "chick-flick" and just say that women are too dramatic. Women are complex and beautiful creatures. They are far more keen to their emotions then men are, and that is what the film is about. I thought this was a striking film and simply one of the best of the year. But to me it does stand out just a little bit more because it had a wonderful conclusion and I couldn't stop talking about it afterwards. And about the whole repressed Lesbian thing. That is far too easy an answer. The only Lesbian in the movie was Meryl Streep, Virginia Wolf and Julianne Moore did it out of a repressed longing just to be free to do whatever they wanted. It was a sign of inner rebellion. To dumb the film down into "a movie about three depressed lesbians" is an insult to the film and the three great actresses who brought it to life. Each performance was just an eye opening experience, and the cross over from past to present was very reminiscent of another great film of 2002, Adaptation. In a time where movies are far too straight forward and peddle the audience with easy answers it's nice to see that film's still leave themselves open to interpretation. Lives are not so neat and easy to explain. When you can answer all the questions that come up in your life abouts sadness and joy then come back to this film and ridicule it, but if you cannot I suggest you watch it again and admire it for what it doesn't answer. To the many women who live long hard hours.
Rating:
Summary: So many unhappy people
Review: During the first couple minutes of THE HOURS, it's 1941 and author Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) commits suicide by walking into a river. That pretty much sets the tone of the film as a whole. The body of the film skips back and forth among three timelines. In 1923, Woolf is forced by physicians and her husband (Stephen Dillane) to live away from the center of London in a dreary suburb after two suicide attempts. The author resents her isolation, and tells her spouse that peace is not found by being shielded from the world at large. Virginia expresses her frustration by writing a book, "Mrs. Dalloway", in which the protagonist, while preparing for a dinner party, is confronted by events that raise into consciousness the shallowness and inadequacies of her life. In 1951, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), living in a Los Angeles middle-class housing tract with loving husband Dan (John C. Reilly) and young son, is reading "Mrs. Dalloway". Contemplating her lack of fulfillment in the roles of wife and mother, Laura bakes her husband's birthday cake, plans his party, and considers suicide. In 2001 New York, Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) lives with her same-sex partner, while at the same time caring for ex-husband Richard (Ed Harris), who's dying of AIDS in a dark and cluttered flat. Richard is an award-winning poet, and Clarissa (nicknamed "Mrs. Dalloway" by her Richard) is planning a dinner party in honor of his accomplishments. THE HOURS is a complex film, the heroines of its three subplots all linked by the threads of self-destruction, "Mrs. Dalloway", and the extreme emotional and psychological dissatisfaction each feels in the relationship with the man in her life. Clarissa is already in a lesbian liaison, and there are strong hints that the other two would welcome such. The performances of the four principle actors (Kidman, Moore, Streep, and Harris) are all of Oscar caliber. There are perhaps as many messages to be gotten from THE HOURS as there are people who will view it. I perceived the velvet chains that bind two people in a relationship. ("That's what we do. We stay alive for one another". - Clarissa) Chains that may drive one to an exit of desperation if there's an absence of love, or the feeling of one's own self being smothered and not having a little patch of ground to call one's own. And the guilt we feel when those chains are broken, if even to the long-term advantage of self. This is a splendid and brilliantly conceived film that deserves all the honors it will reap. The connection between the 1951 and 2001 timelines was cleverly done. But, for me, THE HOURS had one great flaw. It failed to establish any emotional attachment between the main characters and myself. Virginia was too sour, Laura too distant, and Clarissa too self-absorbed. I left the theater admiring the movie for its artistry more than I was moved by it.
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