The Hours (2002) (Widescreen)

A beautiful, thought-provoking and creative story. Well done.

The story revolves around the author, Virginia Woolf, as she writes her story, "Mrs. Dalloway" and how the words she writes affect two other women in different time periods. Virginia is portrayed by Nicole Kidman and she does a wonderful job showing the essence of Virginia's depression and self-doubt. A brilliant writer who involves all of your senses in her prose she succumbs to the artist's tendency to be self-doubters and insecure, possibly from all the exposure to critics at every bend and corner. The cigarettes she smokes seethe about her as she contemplates her suicide and a word to leave behind, like her soul is going up in smoke. She lies beside a dead bird and she feels dead before her time, unable to fly and stifled by depression that is never fully explained. Her end is filmed in such a way that she surrenders herself to the river's current and slowly gets swept away by nature but she seems somehow freed by her own death, floating along in time and crossing the borders that time presents.

Julianne Moore plays the character, Laura Brown; a pregnant homemaker in the 1950's who is struggling with what life has to offer her. She seems to exist in a blur of emotion all of which sways towards depression. She attempts to bake a perfect cake for her "perfect" husband's birthday and fails sending herself into a moment of panic that almost produces her own demise. She runs away from her child and stays alone in a hotel ready to take her life and that of her unborn. She reads "Mrs. Dalloway" and becomes involved in another's misfortune which somehow awakens her to her senses and she retreats back to the normalcy of her mundane life. I could not help but be emotional during a scene where she is preparing herself for bed and her husband calls from the bedroom, "Come to bed Laura Brown," it left me with a sickened feeling. In Laura's eyes you see her sadness and her desperate need to leave but she stays, unhappily, like a servant.

Meryl Streep plays, Clarissa Vaughn, a modern woman who follows the footsteps of Virginia's character "Mrs. Dalloway" as she spends her day catering to others. She buys flowers in desperate attempts to cheer up those around her when in fact she is the one who is in need of cheer. She tries to revive a dying man played brilliantly by Ed Harris, Richard, who is succumbing to the power of AIDS and all of its downfalls. Clarissa opens windows for brightness where all she sees is gray; she perks up the grayness with flowers but only manages to bring a feeling of hopelessness to Richard instead. His writing award seems to go unnoticed although she plans a tremendous celebration his soul just shuts down. Under all of the pressure Clarissa breaks down and experiences the sadness of the day and the reality of death. Richard falls from his own window in his desperate act of suicide and mercy. Clarissa is left to deal with all of the pain.

In the end we learn that Richard is in fact the son of Laura Brown. Seemingly she has transferred her loneliness and despair to the life of her own son without regret. She explains that she abandoned her family after all, needing to conduct her life on her own terms.

The music and the language of the film inspire creative juices, especially the scenes where Virginia Woolf is speaking. Having read the book first I was able to experience more than the film managed to contain although the film was more easily explained. I recommend both expressions for the full impact of these desperate women and the lives they lead. It will not take hours to be gripped by their needs.