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The Hours (2003, DVD)

Movie Description
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.

Credits
Producer:Robert Fox, Scott Rudin
Cast:Allison Janney, Claire Danes, Ed Harris, Eileen Atkins, John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Stephen Dillane, Toni Collette

Details
Edition:Widescreen

Notes
DVD Features:

Region 1
Keep Case
Widescreen
Audio:
   Dolby Digital Stereo - English
Additional Release Material:
   Audio Commentary - 1. Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman - Stars
    2. Stephen Daldry - Director, Michael Cunningham - Novelist
   Featurettes - 1. THREE WOMEN
    2. THE MIND & TIMES OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
    3. THE MUSIC OF 'THE HOURS'
    4. THE LIVES OF MRS. DALLOWAY
   Introduction by the Filmmakers
Interactive Features:
   Interactive Menus
   Scene Selection, Theatrical Release: DECEMBER 27, 2002 (NY/LA)

Editorial Reviews
"...THE HOURS is exquisitely written, graced with a gift for elusive emotions and an effortless ability to delineate lives....A splendid film..."
Los Angeles Times - p.C1 - Kenneth Turan

"...Eloquent, somber....Deeply moving....Magnificently written and acted..."
New York Times - p.E1 - Stephen Holden

"...Richly layered, deliberately paced, dealing with difficult emotions and life decisions, it feels like a moody wintry afternoon....The film is a powerful adaptation of a complex work of fiction..."
USA Today - p.11D - Claudia Puig

"...A most engaging, moving and provocative film....Moore and Streep are impeccable....It's the sheer conviction and power of her performance that makes you forget it's Nicole Kidman, movie star, up there..."
Premiere - p.19 - Glenn Kenny

"...Kidman's acting is superlative, full of passion and feeling....These three unimprovable actresses make THE HOURS a thing of beauty..."
Rolling Stone - p.76 - Peter Travers

"...Bathe -- soak, more like -- in the voluptuous sadnesses of Mss. Woolf, Brown, and Vaughan, delineated with such refinement by Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep..."
Entertainment Weekly - p.52-3 - Lisa Schwarzbaum

"...The film deftly builds a sense of synchronicity and connectedness through parallel moments, gestures and plot points....THE HOURS is a beautiful meditation on the life force and redemptive power of literature..."
Box Office - p.60 - Sheri Linden

"...Daldry's sense of period is elegantly realised and his theatrical background ensures a quality of performance..."
Total Film - p.97 - Simon Crook

Awards
2002Academy AwardsBest ActressNicole Kidman

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    Top Reviews
      Kidman, Streep & Moore Perform Virginia Woolf
    Review created: 06/18/06(updated 12/18/06)
    10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

    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.


    Review ID: 10000000001212935
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    Reviews
      The Hours
    Review created: 06/05/08

    Otstanding performances by all actrices. Nicole Kidman shows that she has an amazing talent to deeply involve herself in the character she portrays and manages to outshine her co-actors. Very good movie. can be recommended


    Review ID: 10000000007426408
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      The Hours
    Review created: 09/07/06
    by:
    1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

    A depressing but wonderful story about life as we live it. Reality is sometimes hard to watch. No mulling over the realities of our decisions in life.
    I bought it because my grandmother's house and block is used in the section of the movie that Julianna Moore stars in.
    Enjoy.............Ed Harris is incredible in this movie. As is Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman.


    Review ID: 10000000001776626
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      The Hours: Desperate minutes
    Review created: 07/29/03
    by: telynor-- a member of Epinions and Advisor in Movies

    Pros:
    Nicole Kidman, the use of editing, the entire tone of the film.

    Cons:
    I've never been a Meryl Streep fan...

    With some trepidation, and not a little angst, I finally sat down and watched the adaptation of Michael Cunningham's book, The Hours. The book had gained quite a bit of notority, even had been selected for Oprah's book club, and there had been even more yelling when the film was cast. More about the prothestic work later. Not to mention the subject matter. Here we get writing, depression, suicide, AIDS, and other jollities of living in the twentieth century. As somone whose life has been touched by these subjects, I really wasn't certain if I could sit through two hours of these subjects...


    Review ID: 10000000000591376
      The Hours Movie! It Felt Like Hours, Long Ones At That!
    Review created: 11/11/03
    by: botsybaby -- a member of Epinions

    Pros:
    I liked the cast and the moody music in the film.

    Cons:
    Didn't enjoy the story, it's confusing and frustrating, boring as well.

    The Hours was a long, drawn out, boring movie if I ever did see one. I found it consistently confusing and undeniably frustrating. The only things I enjoyed were the cast, some of the things spoken by Virginia Woolf, and the moody instrumental music, but you have to be in the mood for that. The Cast: Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf, Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughn, Julianne Moore as Laura Brown, Ed Harris as Richard Brown, Toni Collette as Kitty, Claire Danes as Julia Vaughan, Jeff Daniels as Louis Waters, Stephen Dillane as Leonard Woolf, Allison Janney as Sally Lester, John C. Reilly as Dan.


    Review ID: 10000000000591379
      Depression Is No Fun. Film At 11. 'The Hours'
    Review created: 08/11/03
    by: Vormancian -- a member of Epinions

    Pros:
    It's excellent.

    Cons:
    I couldn't care less.

    This 'review' is far more like 'commentary', though it is perhaps not precisely that either. It also gives away everything about the movie, whatever that may be in this case. You've been warned. The Hours is the second movie I viewed in rapid-fire succession which included Miranda Richardson in the cast, and the one to watch is Spider . I wouldn t watch The Hours again, or even wish it upon anyone, but I m in the annoying position of appreciating it greatly. Maybe it s just me..., I m sick of depressed people. The main point of The Hours , of course, is that you have committed one of the...


    Review ID: 10000000000591385
      The Hours - The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
    Review created: 08/04/03
    by: millinocket-- a member of Epinions and Lead in Movies

    Pros:
    Kidman, Moore, interweaving of stories

    Cons:
    Streep

    Where to start when talking about a movie like The Hours? With Virginia Woolf and the original story of Mrs. Dalloway? That might be a good place, if I knew thing one about either. With the disease that is depression, and how it affects those who have it and the people who love them? Well, that s an entire thesis all by itself. Even breaking the movie down and talking about the individual elements is really insufficient. The whole being so much greater than the sum of the parts. I suppose the only reasonable way to tackle this movie is to start where the filmmakers did. At the beginning. Well.


    Review ID: 10000000000591377
      Bravura ensemble acting, but the book's better still
    Review created: 02/11/03
    by: Stephen_Murray-- a member of Epinions and Advisor in Movies

    Pros:
    impressive ensemble acting almost all the way around

    Cons:
    static camerawork, not very fitting musical score

    Preamble: Complex novels that delve into multiple subjectivities are unpromising sources for the very objective medium of film, though voice-overs conveyed the point of view of the narrators of many noires (including the dead narrators of "Sunset Boulevard" and the very color-saturated noirish "American Beauty" and the black comedy "Alfie") and some other retrospective films ("Cross Creek" and "Sophie's Choice," both adapted from outstanding, much-acclaimed books). Third-person narration often runs amok ("The Naked City," "Topkapi"), though sometimes provides entertainment ("Tom Jones," ...


    Review ID: 10000000000591378
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