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THE
HOURS Rating:  Director: Stephen Daldry Producers: Scott Rudin, Robert Fox Writer: David Hare, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham Director of Photography: Seamus McGarvey Cast: Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, John C. Reilly, Miranda Richardson, Allison Janney Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew |
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Review by: Warren
Curry
01/05/03
Let's not kid ourselves -- The Hours is one of those films made seemingly with the expressed purpose of winning year-end awards and being lauded by American critics' associations from Boston to Seattle and everywhere in between. With a cast featuring three of current cinema's most respected actresses (Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore), the film's chances for failure were practically non-existent. And The Hours, on a very basic level, is certainly a good movie, yet there is an element I find slightly off-putting about this film. It contains a sense of artistic arrogance that doesn't work to gain admiration as much as it seems to expect copious amounts of praise to be herded its way. Streep, Kidman and Moore are all at the top of their games, David Hare's literate screenplay resonates with a deep intelligence, but director Stephen Daldry's (Billy Elliot) approach to the material is woefully ineffective.
Based on the novel by Michael Cunningham, The Hours tells three different but thematically related stories. Kidman, wearing a hideous prosthetic nose, plays writer Virginia Woolf, an unhappy artist, who we first meet as she writes a suicide note to her husband. Moore plays Laura Brown, an equally unhappy suburban housewife in 1950's Los Angeles, who shuffles her way listlessly through life, caring for her nondescript husband (John C. Reilly) and there disturbed young son (Damien from The Omen has got nothing on this kid). Streep stars as the third main character, Clarissa Vaughn, a New York book editor, who cares for her AIDS-stricken ex-husband (Ed Harris), while enduring a difficult relationship with her new partner, Sally (Allison Janney).
We flashback to the period in Woolf's life when she is writing her novel, "Mrs. Dalloway," which Laura is in the midst of reading, and whose title character is used as a nickname for Clarissa. The central character in the novel, as Laura explains in one scene, is an outwardly confident woman who happily hosts a variety of functions, yet this façade shields the sad person underneath. The blueprint of Mrs. Dalloway's character could describe the three central females, as they all struggle to lead honest, fulfilling lives. Two of them -- Virginia and Laura -- both act briefly upon lesbian tendencies, but are stuck in realities that would make further exploration of this sexuality almost impossible. Conversely, Clarissa, the inhabitant of a world with more sexual freedom, lives openly as a lesbian, but is clearly more attached to her ex-husband, who is also bi-sexual. Only once do the three stories connect, as the intercutting of them is meant to demonstrate the parallels between the lives of the women, who live in very different time periods.
The Hours may very well be the best-acted film of 2002, as all three leads turn in performances worthy of their lofty reputations. The supporting players are equally as good, with Toni Collette defining the term scene-stealer in her brief appearance. John C. Reilly plays a naïve, slow-witted husband for the third time this year, and he has the role down to an exact science. Although Reilly's character is relatively minor in the overall scheme of the film, his total lack of awareness of his wife's turmoil is almost heartbreaking.
Although the film centers on the fragility of just about every character it encounters, Daldry never once taps into their emotional states on a visual level. The perfectly framed, smooth Steadicam shots paint a beautiful, antiseptic portrait of lives that could spontaneously combust at any moment. It's a contrast that doesn't work, and I sincerely question if Daldry truly thought about the most effective way to film this material, or if he was just interested in making the most visually appealing film possible. I'm not implying that he needed to have his D.P. running around with a 16mm camera slung over his shoulder, but every shot in this film, punctuated by its grandiose orchestrated score, screams, "Look at me! I'm brilliant! Give me my Oscar!" The director also probably could've eliminated one, two or thirty of the pointless insert shots (who does he think he is? Quentin Tarantino?).
With a director who had more of a vision for this film, The Hours could've been a great movie. Instead, it's merely a good one…but not nearly as good as it thinks it is.
(A Paramount Pictures release. Opened
in New York and Los Angeles on December 27. Expands to more cities
at later dates.)
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