THE HOURS (2002)
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Paramount Pictures, 144 minutes, PG-13
★★★★★
I recently rewatched The Hours, which is loosely based on the 1925 Virginia Woolf novel Mrs. Dalloway. Two-thirds of the movie modernizes circumstances, but fans of Mrs. Dalloway will easily pick out borrowed elements.
Those who adapt classic works of literature do so at their own peril, but what a team assembled for the film. The screenplay was written by David Hare based on a novel from Michael Cunningham. The Academy Award-winning score came from Philip Glass, and the cast is almost entirely A-level. Its three principals alone were a coup: Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf. Rather than attempt to echo Woolf’s stream of consciousness writing style, director Stephen Daldry jumps between three timelines and settings: 1920s England, 1951 suburbia, and 2001 New York City. Each period covers a single day.
Nicole Kidman dons a prosthetic nose and adopts a worried, dour Quaker demeanor to depict a depressed Woolf. She’s trying to get a handle on Mrs. Dalloway, is struggling, and everything that happens that day annoys her no end. She hates living in Richmond, England, then a country retreat for titled aristocrats, rich gentry, and social climbers. Woolf hates it and yearns for the hustle and bustle of London. She feels like a prisoner of her husband Leonard (Stephen Dillane), her self-appointed guardian against self-harm and impetuous behavior. Her sprawling house, her class status, Leonard, and even the servants are metaphorical wardens. A visit from her sister Vanessa Bell (Miranda Richardson) and her family drives Virginia deeper into depression. Vanessa has children, a settled family life, and devotes herself to domesticity–all things Virginia is supposed to want but doesn’t. We see her attempt to run away to London, as well as foreshadowing of Woolf’s 1941 suicide by loading her pockets with rocks and wading into the River Ouse.
The 1951 sequences center on Laura Brown (Moore) living in one of the instant suburbs that proliferated after World War Two. She is married to war vet Dan (John C. Reilly), a well-meaning, not-so-bright guy who buys into the dream of a ranch house, a gee-whiz son named Richie (Jack Rovello), a manicured lawn, a TV set, and dinner waiting when he gets home. Laua, however, leans on her neighbors Mrs. Latch (Margo Martindale), and Kitty (Toni Collette) because she doesn’t have a domestic bone in her body. She is bored senseless, makes a lesbian pass, and briefly runs away to a Los Angeles hotel where she contemplates suicide, but can’t do it.
The 2001 scenes are the equivalent of hyper-modernized productions of Shakespeare. We meet Clarissa Vaughan (Streep) in a shabby apartment where she is caring for her gay friend Richard (Ed Harris), a cynical gay writer covered with lesions and dying of AIDS. Clarissa is frenzied because she is throwing a big party for Richard that evening to celebrate his career achievement award. Clarissa is so manic that Richard actually calls her “Mrs. Dalloway.” Clarissa and Richard were lovers in college but she is now a lesbian in a longtime relationship with Sally (Allison Janney). Clarissa frets every detail, from where to distribute the flowers in her upscale apartment to how to seat the guests. Her daughter Julia (Clare Danes) tries to be a calming influence, but good luck with that. At the last minute the party is off. As Clarissa takes his suit over to Richard’s apartment, he swallows a few pills and jumps to his death when her back is turned. Surprise guests nonetheless turn up, including his ex-lover Louis (Jeff Daniels), and a super-surprise guest.
The Hours won a lot of critical acclaim in 2002, though some viewers found it depressing (duh!) and a few critics complained that female victimization was overdone (duh and doh!). Apparently, none of the complainers had ever heard of The Feminine Mystique or paid much attention to the 1951 segment. It is rare for a Hollywood film to have so many high-powered and talented actors in one film. (The usual is to have two or three “big” names as audience lures and fill in with unknowns and third-rate actors.) The entire cast acquits themselves well, no matter the size of their roles. Though my literary friends may skewer me, it’s a rare film that surpasses the book that inspired it.
Rob Weir
For those who care, here is the River Ouse, though in York, not where Woolf killed herself.
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