Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2749 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-11-17
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Italian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 114 minutes

From the studio
· The Music of The Hours

· Three Woman

· Filmmakers Introduction

· The Mind and Times of Virginia Woolf

· The Lives of Mrs. Dalloway

· Theatrical Trailer

· Storyboards

· Audio Commentary with the Director and Screenwriter

· Audio Commentary with the Cast

Synopsis
Based on the Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Michael Cunningham, THE HOURS employs Virginia Woolf's classic novel and central character, MRS. DALLOWAY, as its foundation and inspiration. Spanning three different eras, during one day, the film focuses on the parallel lives of three women joined in their depression, alienation, and search for love. Nicole Kidman, wearing a prosthetic nose, is virtually unrecognizable as the tortured writer Virginia Woolf whose ongoing battle with mental illness eventually led to her tragic suicide in 1941. The film begins with the moment of her suicide and flashes back on her life and work as she crafted her most memorable character, Clarissa Dalloway, in 1923. In 1950's California suburbia another woman, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), struggles with alienation and depression. Trapped by her clinging young son and an adoring husband whom she does not love, the desperate woman tries to prepare for her husband's birthday but cannot stop reading MRS. DALLOWAY. Finally, in modern day Manhattan, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep), a lesbian who lives with her lover (Allison Janney) and her daughter (Claire Danes), struggles to prepare a party for her ex-husband (Ed Harris) who is dying of AIDS. Director Stephen Daltry uses beautiful overlapping editing to sew the women's interwoven stories seamlessly together. At the core of this profoundly moving film is the trio of award-winning actresses who grace the screen with their bold and awe-inspiring performances.

From the Back Cover
A trio of the screen’s best actresses – two time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep (Best Actress, Sophie’s Choice, 1982; Best Supporting Actress, Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979), Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman (Best Actress, The Hours, 2003) and Julianne Moore (Hannibal) – star as three women from very different eras who are linked by their common yearnings and fears. Virginia Woolf (Kidman), in a suburb of London in the early 1920s, is battling insanity as she begins to write her first great novel, Mrs Dalloway. A wife and mother in post-World War II Los Angeles, Laura Brown (Moore) is reading Mrs Dalloway and finding it so revelatory that she begins considering making a devastating change in her life. Clarissa Vaughan (Streep), a present-day version of Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, lives in New York City and is in love with a friend (Ed Harris - A Beautiful Mind) who is dying of AIDS. Also starring John C. Reilly (Gangs of New York), Claire Danes (Brokedown Palace) and Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense) – their engaging stories intertwine until they come together in a surprising moment of shared recognition.

Customer Reviews

Depressing, dull and questionable.
The attempt at justifying the dumping of a child at a hotel is a particular low point in this film, which -for me- drags dreadfully. My only sympathy lay with the chap who (forced by circumstances, it appears) jumps out of a window - seemingly a victim of fortune, the other actors/actresses and the author.

I noticed that one 5-star review referred to the emphasis on every action - including the quality of the acting in even basic activities like turning off a light. Maybe it's a sad reflection on myself that I'm not impressed by such details, nor by the time-shifting and mingling of a range of character traits. The attempt is to make links between a range of women, but they are all negative, depressing links - offering no glimmer of hope. Why is the viewer supposed to feel empathy for these characters?

From the range of positive reviews this film receives, I can only assume that my opinions are not held by most of the other reviewers. That's fair enough, but there is a rather unpleasant undercurrent with many of those reviews - whereby, if you don't agree with them, you're considered unworthy to make comments of your own. My first review was removed by Amazon following abusive personal comments made by people who had clearly enjoyed the film and yet were unable to defend its credibility. How many other one star reviews been removed to improve the star rating for this film?

"Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."
"Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself". From this opening line of Virginia Woolf's novel of the same name, this marvellous movie blossoms. It is the story of three women whose lives are affected in some way by this line: Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) writes the line at her Richmond home in 1926; Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) reads the line in 1951 suburban Los Angeles; and Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) acts out the line in 2001 Manhattan. These are all highly-nuanced performances, betraying the fleetest of thoughts and emotions in silent actions. Stephen Dillane is a totally believable hard-pressed Leonard Woolf, whilst Miranda Richardson is Virginia's sympathetic but ultimately distant sister. Even Eileen Atkins plays a cameo as a Manhattan florist.

The film is full of the everyday, and that is both its charm and its story, as similar actions - combing hair, turning off lights - are undertaken by these three women across space and time. But there is also a persistent presence of underlying tragedy. The links between the three women are deep and wide-ranging: food and eating, mental health, women kissing women, reading/writing/being Mrs Dalloway, attempted suicides, guests arriving early. The parallels and interweaving between the three lives are innumerable. All three are repressing major aspects of their inner selves - passions denied, or loves lost - that result in stifling atmospheres and imprisoned souls.

If I had to choose a favourite scene, it is of Meryl Streep, preparing food in her kitchen, trying to cope with the pressures of her life whilst also trying to make pleasant smalltalk with her ex-boyfriend's ex-boyfriend, Jeff Daniels playing the self-infatuated gay man to a tee.

No, instead I choose Julianne Moore waving goodbye to her young son, who intuitively knows that something is wrong and screams tears at the thought that his mother might reject him. The shock of the grown-up Richard leaving through the high-rise window is long-prepared but is a sharp jolt all the same. The subsequent cut to Richard again as a child only heightens the sense of tragedy.

No, no, instead I choose the final scene of Nicole Kidman, slowly but determinedly giving her life to the river's waves, whilst reciting the message she has left for her husband: "To look life in the face, and to know it for what it is, to love it for what it is and then to put it away. Always the years, always the love, always the hours."

You see how this film is an embarrassment of riches, so full of marvellous acting, brilliant directing and editing, and superb writing? There is only one false moment, and that is the station scene between Virginia and Leonard Woolf. It appeared out of character for Leonard to shout out in public the problem of his wife's mental health, but the subsequent rapprochement between them is very moving: "You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard."

The film's ending is a tour-de-force. As she writes her novel "Mrs Dalloway", Virginia provides the key to the film's message: "Someone has to die so that the rest of us value life more ... the poet will die, the visionary." This is mirrored by Julianne Moore's character who, having abandoned her family, reflects that her former life "was death. I chose life." This sounds all so depressing, but it is Meryl Streep's character who betrays this lie, for in the face of her tragedy - the party for which she has laboured so much, has had to be cancelled - what happens, but that she is silently comforted by the people who love her and live for her. Virginia Woolf is right: someone does have to die for the rest of us to value life all the more. Some call it maudlin, but I found this a moving and passionately positive ending.

Some critics have derided Philip Glass's score as too sentimental. For me, its perpetual and insistent pulses and rhythms, broken by spasms of pianistic lyricism, is one reason for the success of the film. The music's texture speaks volumes about the everyday nature of these three women's reality, whilst giving intimations of the tragedies to come. In the accompanying DVD commentary, Meryl Streep says that, "the music starts you on a journey and carries you through fluently to the end." It is great to see that the importance of the soundtrack is celebrated by there being a seven-minute feature on the music of the film as one of the extras.

A few words about the other extras on my DVD. There are two commentaries. That by the three leading ladies shows their intelligence and insight, as they each relate how they approached their roles, interpreted them and played them; how they became involved in the project; and how they interacted with its production. For example, Nicole Kidman had to learn how to write with the right hand; Julianne Moore explains how her character is more into her book ("Mrs Dalloway") than into her life, and this is how she wants to be; whilst Meryl Streep observes how "so many sections of the film are like one-act plays."

The other commentary is learned and literary and is by the director Stephen Daldry and by the author of the book Michael Cunningham (and NOT as advertised by David Hare, who wrote the screenplay). There are some interesting comments. Stephen Daldry comments on how "the experience of life is an experience of loss." Michael Cunningham observes how through film (as opposed to the novel) you lose the benefit of seeing into people's minds, but that what you gain is suggested by, for example, watching Meryl Streep's character separating eggs. From the way that this task is performed, you know exactly what kind of a person she is. Cunningham is an engaging character, playfully commenting that the film "is a hugely successful movie about people [just] reading a book", and that he must be the only living novelist who is happy with the film adaptation of his own book.

Other extras consist of a ten-minute feature on how the novel was conceived, written and transformed for the screen; a sixteen-minute piece on the casting of the three women; and a 25-minute documentary called The Mind and Times of Virginia Woolf, narrated by Eileen Atkins.

so - so
When you first see this film, it blitzes you. There's so much talent on the screen, and they're all at the top of their game, so it's easy to get confuse into thinking this is a great film. It's not. It creaks all over the place and there are too many archetype wandering around this film rather than real character. It betrays its roots as a book in that regard.

Worth 3 stars to see Julianne Moore, an actress who i think future eras will see as one of our very best. Far from Heaven and Safe are her best, I think, but this is still top top stuff...