The Hours (DVD, 2003, Widescreen)

Even though this film is based primarily on a Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Michael Cunningham, "The Hours" portrays Virginia Woolf's own later life as well as bits of Woolf's novel & protagonist, "Mrs. Dalloway."

Nicole Kidman won the Oscar for Best Actress; but it had to have been difficult for the Academy to choose between her, Meryl Streep, and Julianne Moore, because all of three actors gave stellar performances of women living in three different eras.

When it comes down to it though, Kidman IS Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). Her role as the bisexual passivist during WWII tells the story of the greatest English novelist of the 20th century. Suffering from bi-polar disorder, in all likelihood, in March of 1941, with the Germans just 7 miles from their Jewish (by marriage) door, Woolf/Kidman fills her coat pockets with stones and walks into the river to kill herself rather than suffer another psychological break down or at the mercy of the Nazis. Suicide, which is what Woolf/Kidman committed, is the theme that connects all three women together spanning three different eras.

Moore plays a pregnant mother with a small son who is socially isolated, virtually taken for granted by her husband, and is severely depressed. Moore takes me to the brink of believing that she's actually going to take her own and her unborn baby's life, leaving her young son motherless. She's got a plan, she's carrying it out, and she's laying in a hotel room ready to die.

Streep plays Woolf's immortalized character, Mrs. Dalloway--in modern times. She's a lesbian whose ex-husband is a gay man dying of AIDS. Mrs. Dalloway is the Martha Stewart perfectionist party host who is bent on throwing a party for her ex-husband. But he's dying and in no mood for a party, even at Streep's home. He too is on the brink of taking his own life rather than live through more of a slow torturous death.

This was the Best Picture winner at the Golden Globe Awards.