The Hours (2003, DVD)

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 most heinous form of crimes should you cause anyone to come in contact with Virginia Woolf s Mrs. Dalloway . The book kills people, in some sense or other.

You have to respect the movie (or at least, I do), because it s almost a perfect movie in ways too numerous to count, and it has an all-star cast (and Claire Danes). The actors are mostly brilliant, and excepting Julianne Moore, Jeff Daniels, and John C. Reilly, I have no love for any of them. Ed Harris has been given a bit too much credit, his character feels stagy, easy , and is given little time to develop, but it s not an extremely major issue. The thing looks beautiful, and though our symbolism is occasionally pushed under our nose a bit too much, it has its tone, mood, and visual identity all but perfected. You can see why I don t really like it.

The problem here really is that I just don t care about the whole story. Although, there may be some sort of out at the end. I don t exactly think so, but there might be. It s not that I m unsympathetic toward people who are depressed (this is in fact true, but it isn t it ), I m just not interested in them. In a certain sense, I don t even believe in it. I think life sucks, isn t a disease, and I don t care if you do find the pill that makes it go away.

There are two kinds of people in this world, though maybe it s just me, those that are happy because of, and those that are happy in spite of. If you re one of the happy because of people, I ve lost interest in you already.

So, here comes this movie that s going to really delve into the worlds, lives, and minds of three people who are, as they say on Prince Edward Island, in the depths of despair, and at least contemplating suicide. Here s a movie that goes into great detail to recount the life of a woman, Laura (Julianne Moore), who abandons her husband and two children, and we re relieved, because she was going to kill herself while pregnant with one of them; and wants me to invest something in her, and her plight. There s nothing wrong with her life, by the way, she just doesn t like it. There is some hint that she s unsure of her sexuality (and that would perhaps make for a whole different kettle of fish), but it s not exactly clear if that isn t just a sort of grasping at straws. Other than that, her husband (John C. Reilly) is a right enough chappie who loves her as much as anyone could want, or appears to, and she seems not to want for anything.

She chose life, she tells us at the end of the movie. Apparently her options were to kill herself, or get up one morning, get on a bus, and go to Canada and get a job in a library. Where the magic happiness came from, how this counts as choosing life , and why I m supposed to be interested are left rather up in the air.

Our other spin on the dance floor is with another woman, Clarissa (Meryl Streep), who is not really, technically, depressed, I think. She s got other problems. She s having a bad day, too be sure, and in fact, a bad few years, but I think calling her depressed, in the clinical way, would be too easy. She is detached from her life in a way, and she does little but go through the motions of her life. She has her own spin on being selfish to such extremes that it transcends selfishness (much like our other depressed people), but hers is a bizarre, pseudo-unselfish selfishness. We find her in the midst of a hectic rush that is the planning of a party for her friend, Richard (Ed Harris), who turns out to be the son of the first depressed woman (we re jumping around in time). She s our (my) touchstone in the film, because she hasn t really gone too far round the bend, though she s scared she has.

And of course, there s Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) herself. The first thing that happens in the film is that she kills herself, and, to its further credit, I always like a movie that tells you where you re going right from the start. We back up pretty quickly, and the majority of the movie watches Woolf s life from the point that she starts writing Mrs. Dalloway . Already in a sort of confinement/suicide-watch life, Woolf suffers from an incredible depression (and a certain obstinance with which people keep stopping her from killing herself). We are able to get somewhat involved with Woolf s depression , because actually (and even according to the movie), she was crazy first, and now she s depressed . Well, frankly, fair enough. If your depression stems from Life sucks, and I m not happy. Poor, poor pitiful me, and you thrown in, I still hear the voices, even I am willing to give you some slack there.

We weave between our three stories, and times, through the connection of (and just as in) Mrs. Dalloway . Woolf is writing it, Laura was reading it during the time of her near suicide, and Richard has always called Clarissa, Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf stares out longingly at life (and death) from the perspective of one trapped, in more ways than one now, by mental illness. Forced, perhaps, into a state of sullen detachment by having nothing to do apart from examining..., everything. Laura fumbles through an existence she apparently never understood, and she s now struck nearly immobile by her intense depression. Clarissa can only manage to shrug in regard to anything about her life, except her daughter.

In the end, in some sort of Hallmark moment , we may have gotten somewhere. Woolf s depression (let s see if I understand how the story is supposed to go here) managed to let her knock out Mrs. Dalloway before doing herself in. Thus, Laura could read it at a time when she was at the height of contemplating suicide, and, I suppose, this had some slight impact on her which gave her just enough humanity to only abandon her family, and not kill herself. Thus, Laura could be around to meet Clarissa who had a lifelong relationship with Laura s son, Richard. Thus, Clarissa could have a chat with Laura (apparently long known as The Monster in Richard s circles), and have a sort of epiphany. Thus, Clarissa, maybe, has a chance.

Well, maybe.

Maybe none of this has made any sense. If there was anything in there, I hope you know whether or not you ll like the movie. I didn t, but it s still very good. The Hours does just about everything right. It presents characters in a refreshingly realistic way, and even gives wonderful levels to characters with no more than five minutes on screen. That s a commitment we aren t used to. It gives us the characters in an amazingly detailed package, and too much credit could not be given to director Stephen Daldry ( Billy Elliot , and curiously tapped for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay ). Rarely has a movie felt more like it was trying to win Oscars, but you ve got to be able to forgive that somewhere, and this is where. Occasionally, as I said, the movie isn t convinced of your ability to pick up on the symbolism it wants to use, so it cuts to a close-up for a few seconds, but even that is forgivable, because somehow you get the impression that it doesn t mean anything by it . Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey isn t worried about where his next job is going to come from (and hasn t been for some time I m sure), but if High Fidelity , Enigma , Wit , and The War Zone (Tim Roth s directorial debut, which is a cinematographer s resume in itself), weren t enough to feel confident, The Hours certainly is.

It has everything really. I just don t care.


I understand sad, miserable, even defeated, and I ll play Trumps Reasons My Life Sucks with anyone who cares to take a spin (because who couldn t, really?), but I have no interest in playing How come I m not happy? It s not interesting, and doesn t become so by virtue of going into more and more detail.


This afternoon I spent an hour skipping rocks with my son (okay, he s two, he didn t really skip any, but he chucked em for all he was worth, and couldn t be distracted from the task). I m not saying that s interesting, or relevant. I m just saying that it s what I did. And, I don t care if you think life sucks.