Counting the Minutiae
The Hours (12)
On general release. Directed by Stephen Daldry. Starring Nicole Kidman: Virginia Woolf; Julianne Moore: Laura Brown; Meryl Streep: Clarissa Vaughan; Ed Harris: Richard; Stephen Dillane: Leonard Woolf; Dan Brown: John C. Reilly . Written by David Hare. Based on the novel by Michael Cunningham.
In its time, Hollywood has raided most major literary figures. Either overtly or covertly, in the Clueless style of adaptation. There haven't been many films of Virginia Woolf.
David Hare's script of The Hours, an adaptation of Michael Cunningham's book, makes Woolf performable. The artistry in the book and film is the balancing and the refinement of Woolf's Mrs Dalloway set in a greater vista. Hare doesn't seem to care for Virginia Woolf much; she's a burden to the more energetic, and more sensitive to other's feelings, Leonard. Virginia is an artist, and better understood through her works than her actions. This is bit tough on Nicole Kidman, who has to protray her anyway, but Kidman and her prosthetic nose do a good job. Kidman, who appeared in the West End in Hare's The Blue Room is the consumate cinema actress here: she acts mostly with her eyes, and a little with her voice. Part of the success of 'The Hours' is that it lacks theatricality. I'll say this for the film, it made me want to read at least one Woolf novel and I've never thought I would.
'The Hours' covers three depressed women, in different places, in different times (but all white, and all middle-class). Woolf is depressed because she is crazy and hears voices, as well as being stultified by early 20th century repectability. Julianne Moore's Laura Brown is stuck in post-war California, portrayed here as a cultural commuterland desert. Only modern-day Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) has a dramatic reason for being upset—her long-time friend Richard (Ed Harris) is dying of AIDS. There is a subtle undertone of humour in 'The Hours': Richard is about to receive a lifetime achievement prize, despite feeling himself a failure, and being so addled with medication that he doesn't know if he has got it yet. His only novel seems to have gone down badly with everyone who mentions it, who all consider it hard going as a read, and its art hardly extending to changing the names.
Daldry and Hare have fun with the problems that the structure presents. The present day is different from the earlier sections, which are presented intercut. Virginia Woolf's suicide is a given, and the fifties episode is closed. Virginia writes; Laura reads; Clarissa is. Kidman writes Mrs Dalloway decided to buy the flowers herself; Moore reads it, and Streep shouts to her lover Sally (Allison Janney—CJ from The West Wing) I'm going to buy the flowers myself. To which Sally responds, as anyone would, What flowers?
Having favourites may not be admirable, but it's inevitable. I consider the Julianne Moore section to be the weakest. Laura's internal problems aren't articulated well enough: any pity we may feel for her is taken by her son Chris, a troubled boy trying to do the right thing and make his mother happy, but unable to find a way. 'The Hours' looks like a women's film, but it comes across more as a how-men-think-women-see-themselves film, and there are disturbing notes of pity and contempt.
I would like any film with Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Jeff Daniels, and Ed Harris in it, so I'll spare the details of what they do, byond saying that it's too little. 'The Hours' is filled with good performances: I thought Billy Elliot was overrated, but Daldry gets marvellous telling details out of every actor. Philip Glass's score manages to sound like every other Philip Glass score, but still has its affecting moments. Overall, a triumph.
