Rating: 
Summary: Abysmal, pointless joke of a movie
Review: What a load of tripe this film turned out to be. It's completely humorless, pointless, and incredibly pretentious. It has all of the depression of Ingmar Bergman's studies on madness and depression but with none of his artistry or insight into the human condition. You know zero about the three leads conditions nor do you care, it all seems to be an excuse to show off film editing techniques and to allow a crew of fine actors/actresses to "shine" by overacting in hopes of winning the coveted golden statue. An hour into the film I wished they would all stop their crying and carry out their suicidal urgings so I could move on to a real film.
Rating: 
Summary: Very touching and groundbreaking
Review: "The Hours" is, in no question, one of the best movies to come out in 2002. Its touching storyline makes the movie well worth watching. Nicole Kidman's performance is the best in her career, making her well deserved of her Oscar win for Best Actress. Julianne Moore showcases her continuing strive for improvement, which she's done since "Boogie Nights". No words can describe how wonderful of an actress Meryl Streep is! Her three-year hiatus was worth the wait. No one can forget the other great performances of John C. Reilly, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Miranda Richardson, and.......Ed Harris. Harris should have won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor(not Chris Cooper), which he was nominated for.
Because of all these wonderful performances, you can feel what it's like to live in an unhappy world. Those who are looking for deep movies should watch "The Hours" as one will not be disappointed. Director Stephen Daltry proves that a movie does not need to be "hip" or "immaturily crazy" to be an instant classic.
Rating:
Summary: hey zeus christo - what a film
Review: It has been a very long time since i have seen a movie that has moved me so incredibly. This film was perfectly made, with the plot of each of the womens' lives weaved intricately together. Standing out as perhaps the best aspect The Hours has to offer is the powerful performances that Julianne Moore (who can act, let me tell ya), Meryl Streep, and Nicole Kidman. With an equally emotionally stirring score to go along with it, this was a great film, to say in the least.
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Summary: Yongjoon writes
Review: One of the top contenders for the Best Picture Oscar this year, is The Hours, a story based on Michael Cunnigham's novel that takes a creative outtake on the penning of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. It revolves around a day in the lives of three women, each living in different times but all facing the same question that troubled the heroine of the book. 'What does it mean to be alive?' The first woman presented to us is Virginia Woolf , played by Nicole Kidman who is almost unrecognizable in her prosthetic nose. Woolf is under a virtual house-arrest due to her history of attempting suicide and her unstable mental condition. Living on the outskirts of London, she is pampered by her devoted husband but nevertheless feels smothered by the constant scrutiny and attention. Unfolding in parallel to Woolf's story is another about a 50's housewife, played by Julian Moore. On the appearance she seems to have a perfect life, with a doting husband, an adorable son, and another child on the way. But as she immerses herself more and more into Virgina Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, she begins to sense a void which pushes her dangerously close to the edge. Finally, another story unspools, this one about a modern day woman, played by Meryl Streep, who plans to throw a party for her ex-husband who is dying of AIDS.
The three stories run simultaneously and yet separately, frequently inter-cutting one another, but as they progress forward, two of them start to converge, and ultimately it provides the audience with a surprising closure.
The greatest forte of the film is in the acting. It is little surprise that all three of its leading actresses garnered an Oscar nomination this year for their roles. Meryl Streep, a proven veteran in the field, is effective as the modern-day Mrs. Dalloway, confused and in deep turmoil in the face of a loved one's mortality. Julianne Moore, another top performer commanding the admiration of many, is chilling as the suburban housewife on the brink of self-destruction. But it's Ms. Kidman who will be creating much of the Oscar buzz. Overlooked last year for her excellent dual performances in Moulin Rouge and The Others, Kidman is the strongest contender for Best Actress this year as the academy has a tendency to bestow a reparative Oscar to those they unintentionally overlooked.
All in all I liked The Hours because it is in essence a well crafted drama with an engaging storyline backed by strong, grounded performances. However, I couldn't shake off the feeling that the movie tried too hard to get its Oscar recognitions. It's almost as if the movie was carefully engineered for this purpose from the very beginning. With three of today's best actresses all gathered into one, the movie can almost be accused of committing an anti-trust violation in terms of monopolizing talent. But be that as it may, it is nevertheless impressive how the director handles the many weighty issues in a manner that captures the essence of what Virginia Woolf tried to say in her novel: the transience of our lives, the sacrifices the society sometimes forces on women, the feeling of obligation to others, to norms and to conventions, and freedom, without which the only alternative is death.
All this, shown in a day in the life of three women.
Rating:
Summary: See this movie!
Review: I cannot disagree more with the review from Denton, TX. Yes, "The Hours" is depressing but it is, more importantly, powerful and insightful. Having suffered from depression from which I've received medical treatment, many friends have asked what it feels like. I must admit that answering this question has always been difficult until this movie came along. The first time I watched "The Hours," I was spellbound...I just couldn't believe a movie would be able to capture the sense and feelings of depression, detachment, & lonliness the way this movie does. Now, I tell close friends to watch "The Hours" because it is exactly what it feels like. You can be surrounded by everybody and everything but you still feel emotionally "empty." Nicole Kidman steals the show and she has justly won the Academy Award to prove just how good she is in this movie. I've heard Nicole was passing through her own bouts of depression with her divorce and all the rage & feelings that accompany this situation; her performance transcends the movie screen. I cannot praise this movie enough...buy it, rent it, do whatever to watch it.
Rating: 
Summary: A Clever Film, But Not A Great One
Review: The Hours tells three interwoven stories of women across different time periods who are all affected by the novelist Virginia Wolf. One is a depressed wife in 1950's Los Angeles (Julianne Moore), one is a divorced woman in modern day New York (Meryl Streep), and one, well, IS Virginia Wolf (Nicole Kidman). All the main actresses play their roles very well, and it is Kidman (almost unrecognisable with her prosthetic nose) who delivers the films best performance.The three stories overall link together well, although not as well as many people have claimed, as the time changes did seem a little laboured at times. All the women are affected by Wolf's novel Mrs.Dalloway and all bear an uncanny resemblance to her character, which was cleverly portrayed. Nearly all of the characters in the film are unhappy, and the overall mood of the film is a dark and haunting one, which added to the atmosphere. The Hours is a good film, perhaps very good, but nothing more than that; it lacked the execution to make it a great film. Yes, there were good points, its uniqueness, the high level of acting, its cleverness of character and time transition, but it was more an experimentation in story structure than a great movie.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutlely worth "The Hours" To watch!
Review: This move is truly one of the best dramas I have seen in a long time. All three of the three female leads are absolutely perfect, but Ms. Kidman definitely stands out as the best performance of the year. Definitely deserving of the Best Actress Oscar. The way it interweaves the three stories is compelling and moving to watch. It is brilliant in every way. When you watch this it will take you from tears to torment. You feel so passionately for all the characters, that you wish to reach out and help them. Definitely take out 'The Hours' to watch this movie.
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Summary: "Such a sense of possibility..."
Review: "I remember one morning, getting up at dawn," Clarissa Vaughn tells her daughter Julia. "There was such a sense of possibility. ...I remember thinking: 'This is the beginning of happiness. ...This is where it starts. And, of course, there'll be always be more.' It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning: It was happiness. It was the moment, right then."
What Clarissa (Meryl Streep) is describing is a morning she spent as a teenager with her then-lover Richard, who would soon leave her for a boyfriend named Louis. Fast-forward some 30 years ahead: Clarissa is in a long-term relationship with Sally (Allison Janney), but she still spends time looking after Richard (Ed Harris), a celebrated poet slowly dying of AIDS. In the back of her mind, Clarissa continually asks herself the question no one can ever truly answer: "What if?"
Clarissa's story is one of the three that unfold in "The Hours," a risky, challenging and spellbinding adaptation of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning best seller. David Hare's extraordinarily rich screenplay (which is an even more impressive achievement if you recall how much of the novel took place in its characters' minds) joins together a trio of women who wouldn't appear to have much in common -- Clarissa, a book editor living in Manhattan in 2001; Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), a housewife in 1951 Los Angeles; and novelist Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman), as she is about to write "Mrs. Dalloway" -- in a kind of artistic/spiritual chain that stretches across the 20th century and into the 21st. It's a story that doesn't back away from dealing with regret, sacrifice and depression, yet ultimately it delivers a message about seizing control of your life and stepping into the future, instead of cocooning yourself in the past.
The movie also serves as something of a master class in acting, thanks to the exquisite performances of Streep, Moore, Kidman and Harris and the outstanding supporting cast, featuring Stephen Dillane, Jeff Daniels, John C. Reilly, Claire Danes, Miranda Richardson, Toni Collette and an amazing young actor named Jack Rovello. This is a film in which nearly everyone who appears on screen gets a chance to make an impression; director Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot") sees to it that there are no throwaway roles here.
The tie that binds Virginia, Laura and Clarissa is a complex one. In each woman's life, flowers, literature, a passionate kiss and a need for meaningful change figure more or less prominently. Virginia and Laura have husbands who worship them, while Clarissa's devotion to Richard earns her both his admiration and his scorn. Virginia's concept for "Mrs. Dalloway" is to represent a woman's entire life in one day; in the time we spend with Virginia, Laura and Clarissa, we see how the events of a few hours can cause someone to completely overhaul his or her life.
The message at the core of Cunningham's novel, that we must ultimately chart our own course, regardless of what everyone around us thinks, is not only echoed but amplified in Hare's incisive screenplay. As Virginia plainly tells Leonard, "You do not find peace by avoiding life." Instead of romanticizing suffering or justifying playing the victim, "The Hours" instead declares it's time to take responsibility, to leave behind old patterns of behavior that no longer work and to reclaim that moment of happiness Clarissa speaks so eloquently about.
Rating:
Summary: The poet found
Review: Virginia Woolf is writing Mrs. Dalloway in a country house. A suburban wife prepares for her husband's brithday and a lesbian mother wants to give her best friend a party (for an award he has won). These three moments reflect the complexity of life in three diferent times. These three moments reflect the conflicts of repression, passion, madness and compromise. Without a doubt the most important dialogue of the movie is said by Woolf, as she decides not to kill Mrs. Dalloway: It must be the visionary... she has to kill the poet. This line just gave me the chills as I heard for the first time. It is the poet closing the circle the one who dies... the one who takes his own life... it is her and it is the little abandoned boy. Woolf must stay in the country because the city is driving her mad, but it is her choice, and she cannot live being in the margin of the world. She must be in the most trivial parties, she must be in the most absurd rhythm of the city, because it is the world, and she cannot live aside from it. It is the poet's death which redeems society. It seems to give some sense to those plain unwanted lifes. Like that suburban woman, who has escaped from the horrors of war through a marriage she didn't want, and which represses her true desires.
I've heard so many times that this is a sad movie. It was not to me. It was wonderfull and beautiful. Even the suicide scenes are beautiful. Kidman really earned her oscar in this movie (though I think she really deserved it the year before, for The Others, instead of Halle Berry). And it was just a crime the Julianne Moore did not won for her role (come on!, what is wrong here? when I could point several floppy and flawed scenes in Chicago!).
This is a movie about thinking and it is for you to think. what is the relation between poetry and art, and the everyday life... no, not entertainment and life... art and life. It is about finding the real poet of the world, the one compromised enough to it, to the point of die for it (and when I say the world I mean it in its more human sense -I am not talking here about politics, or warriors or killers).
Rating:
Summary: A Serious, Sad Movie (A 4.2 on a scale of 1 to 5)
Review: "The Hours" is a serious, complex movie with some beautiful performances. It is based on the novel of the same name, which in turn pays homage to Virginia Woolf's, "Mrs. Dalloway." The movie demands the viewer's attention and concentration. "The Hours" follows three women from different cities and eras: Virginia Woolf in London in the 1920's (Nicole Kidman); a post-WW II housewife in Los Angeles (Julianne Moore); and a book editor who lives in New York in the present day (Meryl Streep).
Numerous clever cuts and transitions link the stories (e.g., one woman cracks an egg and then the movie transitions to another woman doing the same thing) as well as more profound underlying emotions (Woolf had female relationships, Moore's character kisses another female character, Streep lives with a female lover).
I would recommend that a viewer read or see "Mrs. Dalloway" (Vanessa Redgrave played the role a few years ago) before "The Hours." It's not required but it increases your appreciation for the movie. For example, in "Mrs. Dalloway," a character named Clarissa Dalloway spends the day planning a party and thinking about a long ago kiss to a woman (she's been married for years). In "The Hours," Meryl Streep's character spends her day in party preparations and thinks about a long-ago heterosexual relationship (she is now in a lesbian one). I wouldn't recommend reading the actual "The Hours" before seeing the movie: a plot twist late in the story would be ruined.
The performances are for the most part outstanding with Kidman and Streep the standouts to me. I found Ed Harris in the role of the modern day Clarissa's close friend stricken with AIDS (and her lover from years ago), a bit over the top. He's a fine actor; he just didn't seem to fit this role.
I would recommend this movie to individuals who like serious, literary films. I wouldn't recommend this movie to individuals who need-or simply like-some lightness in a film. This is a grim movie. Beautiful in many ways, profound, thought provoking-but grim.
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