Rating: 
Summary: Boring Beyond Belief
Review: My wife and buy movies to be entertained. After 45 minutes of this one, we looked at each other and said why are we watching this show. The title is appropriate however, minutes do seem like hours hanging on to this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Perhaps this is what Virginia Woolf was all about, but...
Review: Abandoning one's family is good and noble? Homosexuality is good and noble, whereas heterosexuality (especially in marriage w/children) is quite bad and oppressive to women? Suicide is good and noble, too? Perhaps suicide is a courageous step? But, so is listening to voices and just being depressed. The messages conveyed are just these, but few reviewers seem willing to admit to this, or they like what they see. If you watch this film, try not to wallow in a pit of despair afterwards. Or, you may find some of it to be comical (as I did), because the film takes itself so very seriously.So, if you are a woman, go grab your best gal pal and give her a big ole smooch on the mouth! Then, go lie down next to a dead bird in your garden. Envy the dead bird. How hard was it for Virginia to drown herself, anyway? The poor, depressed thing. Prozac had not yet been invented.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful and true to life.
Review: Having not read the book, I must say this is a tour de force, not only for the three actresses, but also for the director. So many Hollywood films are soooo disappointing, tiring, not wholly worthy of your time. This film is worthy of your time. Yes, Kidman is unrecognizable and excellent as Woolf...just as I imagined VW to be, really. Streep is the modern Mrs. Dalloway, and perfectly so. What a fine and admirable craftsperson she really is. Even her daughter is true to life--I think played by Claire Danes--probably inspired by the great Streep. Moore does another turn (similar to Far From Heaven) as a tragic fifties housewife, but hey, she does it well. The little boy who plays Moore's son is BRILLIANT and perfect. My gosh. If you have to choose between two movies to watch tonight, choose this one, and enjoy the notion that people in H'wood, or at least some people, still care enough to put everything they've got into a movie. Don't pick nits, life is too short.
Rating:
Summary: An experience to savour
Review: After reading THE HOURS by Michael Cunningham I took a respite from reading, so very superb was his book that I didn't want to share brain space with anything else. Then seeing the film adaptation spurred me on to reading MRS DALLOWAY yet again. Now the DVD is out and I rank THE HOURS with my top five movie favorites. Cunningham's genius-quality response to Virginia Woolf's novel, MRS DALLOWAY, successfully admixes one day in the lives of three women from different times - Virginia Woolf in 1923 as she devises her novel and the characters' fates; Laura Brown a fragile housewife/mother teetering on self destruction, and Clarissa Vaughn in 2001 an editor and mother in a longterm lesbian relationship - planning a "Mrs. Dalloway"-type party for her AIDS ridden poet friend Richard. David Hare has written a screenplay that seamlessly weaves these three women's lives through the hours of one day: Virginia Woolf inhales, Clarissa exhales, Laura Brown stares into the same type space as both Virginia and Clarissa. The result is a wondrous, intimate exploration of the value of living, a value than can without censure include taking one's own life. The dialogue is mesmerizing, a script (and book) that leaves you wishing you could memorize each word and line. Every one of the "company" roles is acted (and directed) with uncanny finesse - Toni Colette, Ed Harris, Allyson Janney, Charles Reilly - all of them. The Phillip Glass music score is the perfect choice to meld these ingredients into an unforgetable film. Another great joy of buying this DVD is the additional history of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, the enlightened (for once) dialogue among Nicole Kidman, Myrl Streep, and Julianne Moore, and the comments by composer Glass, writers Cunningham and Hare, and director Daldry paying homage to a project which all began with Virginia Woolf. I cannot recommend this movie/DVD more highly. It is simply and uniquely exquisite.
Rating: 
Summary: I had trouble figuring it out...
Review: I think maybe if you read the book the movie makes more sense. I didn't know much about the movie, and when i watched it I found myself concentrating hard just to try to figure out what I was seeing. In the end it all began to make some sense, but I still feel I am missing something. It was very good to watch with excellent acting performances throughout. I would recommend learning a bit about the book or the plot before seeing it.
Rating:
Summary: The evil Anti-Hours!
Review: OK - my admiration for the author of "To the Lighthouse" approaches reverence, so I was skeptical of Cunningham's "The Hours" (too cute, surely), but I picked it up & was entranced: a ghostly fugue of themes at the heart of Woolf's work, amazingly well done. So I was looking forward to the film, knowing of course it wouldn't be as good as the book. But it was awful beyond all conception. The evil entities in charge of this film had one mental characterization of all 3 women: "hysterical." And that's what we get. How else to explain having Clarissa break down in the kitchen, when in the book it's Lucas, a man? How else to explain turning Laura's visit to the hotel (just to get to read alone) into a suicide attempt? How else to explain turning the cool, collected Virginia into a babbling nutcase? (The worst part, which almost made my wife walk out, was turning Vanessa Bell into a socialite who regards her sister like some kind of hippie loony. There is nothing remotely comparable in the book. For ex, when Virginia kisses her, she returns it, instead of acting like she's just been come on to like she does in the film.) Cunningham has been much too gracious about this misogynistic travesty of a film. With a dream cast, it should have been so great. But it fell apart behind the camera. See the movie, if at all, only for Kidman, who looks & acts much like one would imagine Woolf, when the script will let her.
Rating:
Summary: Truly hypnotic
Review: In a world full of such high maintenance films as "The Matrix," "The Hulk," et al., which all seem to strive for a blockbuster appeal, "The Hours" is delicate in its presentation, hypnotic in its music and cinematography. In short, a masterpiece. After viewing the movie three times over a span of a month, I could never quite remember how I got home from the theater. The dialogue, the voices, the lighting, the haunting melodies provided by Phillip Glass all merge together to weave a spell of haunting beauty. It is easy to see how Nicole Kidman won Best Actress for her stunning portrayal of a delicate yet bold and strong Virginia Woolf. It is difficult to accept the reality of Chris Cooper ("Adaptation") taking an Oscar home as Best Supporting Actor over Ed Harris in his role in "The Hours." The cast is superb and heartbreaking, rendering a movie that will both tear at each emotional limb yet reconstruct those same limbs in a more statelier manner, offering hope for life. Depressing, yes. Emotionally wrenching, yes. But the power of this movie is found in this dissonance of the loss of life, of identity, and the power of choosing life. As stated in the movie, "You cannot find peace by avoiding life." It is a simple message perfectly displayed in a powerful package of the lives of three women interwoven to form a cinematic masterpiece. "The Hours" proves that you do not need the force of explosions or special effects to deliver an impact so rare in today's entertainment world.
Rating:
Summary: A Timeless and Haunting Opera for the Ages
Review: Watching The Hours is like listening to a symphony. It has beautiful orchestraded moments that arise and fall like a timeless musical score. The subject matter of this movie is hard to debate at first. There are a lot of themes and subplots, but The Hours is mainly about three different women in three different time peroids, living their lives for everyone else but themselves, all connected by Virgina Wolf's book Mrs. Dalloway. The three main performances are each sensational. Everyone already knows, from one was or another, that Nicole Kidman is excellent and won an Oscar for her role. I would really like to compliment Meryl Streep. Even though her role was not as "showy" as Kidman's, Streep delivers probably the best acting in the film. She delievers all of her lines perfectly, and is always on the edge as her character is. I can't give enough praise to her. And lastly, Ms. Moore blends into her character quite nicely. She makes this 50s housewife distinctly different from her character in Far From Heaven, which makes her performance all the more incredible. Also, there has to be room to say how good Philip Glass's score is. Some people critize it harshly saying it interupts watching the movie because of the constant beats tapping away. However, I strongly feel is adds perfectly to the viewing. The music fits like a glove. Truly, The Hours would not have been the same for me without Glass's score. Overall, The Hours is an elegant film about some of drama's darkest themes. But, the way The Hours is created, these heavy themes float on water like music on air. Each element in this film is part of an opera, and when all the parts are singing at the same time, what an breathtaking piece it is!
Rating:
Summary: Too 'Chick Flick' - At least for me...
Review: Let's start with the only good thing about this movie: the acting, which is spectacular, as you can expect from the cast. This alone deserves the 3 stars I've given it. The story moves between 3 shorter stories: the story of Virginia Woolf, set in the 20's while writing 'Mrs. Daloway', a story of a housewife set in the late 40's / early 50'd era reading 'Mrs Daloway', and the story of a modern day 'Mrs. Daloway', set in 1999. The story moves very slowly between all three threads, interconnecting them throughout it. The depth is supposedly given by the interlocking emotional issues between the 3 stories (hence the 'chick flick' reference). But I felt that the movie focused too much on this emotional connection between the women, and neglected to make me care about them as characters, or their relationship.
Rating:
Summary: Five stars for one of the greatest films of all time
Review: Wow. All I can say is wow. I can honeslty say I have never seen a more beautifully portrayed picture in my life. All elements of this film were fantastic. The acting was superb, all three actresses deserved acclaim and oscars for their roles, as well as Ed Harris, who I feel is in a dead heat with Chris Cooper from Adaptaion for the Best Supporting Actor nod. The depth of this film was extraordinary, I feel that a very important characteristic of a movie is that it can make you think and have a great amount of emotion for the caharacters, and this film succeeds amazingly in that category. Character develpment in this film is wonderful, you feel pain and sorrow for all of the characters, they are all flawed in some way and are tortured by themselves and in the ways that they can't express who they truly are. It is a very sad look into the human heart, and takes you on an emotional rollercoaster on its way. The Hours is so beautifully and artistically written and portrayed on film it is unbelievable, to take a story that has no theatrical background and make it into such an extroardinary film is an accomplishment in itself. It was very imaginative in the way it weaved three storiess, which at the first seem unconnected except for circumstances and emotions, into and explosively shocking ending. The Hours deserved every critics' acclaim and award it was nominated for, honestly it should have been the Best Picture over the superficial and overrated Chicago. I feel this film puts an end to the Hollywood idea that there must be significant plot events and tumulteous occurrences of death or whatnot for the film to be viewing worthy. The Hours shows that the voyage into the human mind and spirit is just as, or in my opinion even more exciting. I don't think it is nearly appreciated enough at this time but I also feel it will be looked back in years to come as one of the greatestfilms of all time. A feat in film making and a step in the right direction for a movie world that is reliant on cheap thrills and sex appeal. Overall, A+ for wonderful film that we are lucky to have blessed upon us, definitely worth the time to watch it, you should be so lucky to have a chance to. You will be a bit depressed and saddened but that is part of life. And if you don't like it at first, give it a few days to let it sink in and you'll feel much differently I guarantee it. I wasn't sure what to think at first myself but your opinion changes believe me. And if you still don't like it than you are a very shallow person in need of help, enjoy the Charlie's Angels premier. Best picture of the year without a doubt.
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