Movie – The hours

Movie – The hours

Score : 9/10 

Year : 2002

Director:  Stephen Daldry

Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey

Country: USA

Language: English

Duration: 1h50

Writers: Michael Cunningham (eponymous novel) ; David Hare (Screenplay) 

Full cast : IMDB 

The hours is a very well crafted and artistically made film, uniting a sophisticated approach to lighting, excellent acting and a wonderful piano based musical score by Philip Glass. 

These put together, offer drama, and emotional involvement in the stories. 

The movie mixes biographical elements from Virginia Woolf's life, with fiction ; as we see the impact of her novel Mrs Dalloway has on fictional characters. 

The hours is an adaptation of a 1999 eponymous novel by Michael Cunningham, not Woolf's Mrs Dalloway from which is had transpositions, but no spoilers. 

The hours is really well edited ; the first few minutes introduces the characters and periods, and then, just like Woolf's novel, tells a day in their lives, and their lives, in that particular day. The pace is equally well chosen, and we get attached and never confuse characters, as they have lengthy scenes dedicated only to them, before switching to another period. 

Mrs Dalloway links these segments and is at the core of the storytelling. 

I love how the lighting and filters give each segment unique styles and colors, and they join to create the depressive atmospheres and also closes the viewer with the characters. 

This film is quite a heavy drama, dealing with serious topic of sexuality, particularly of lesbianism, and the impact of societal stigmas or acceptances of it can have  ; and the existential aspects of depression and suicide. 

Incidentally, I watched it today, the first of September, and of Suicide prevention and awareness month, and I didn't even do this on purpose. 

Indeed, I have recently finished reading Mrs Dalloway, and had to wait before I could borrow the dvd from the local library, so it all worked out for me to watch it whilst my memory of the novel was still fresh, precisely today. 

The fictional characters, outside of Virginia Woolf's segments, are both fictional creations of the novel this movie is adapted from, but which are also highly inspired from Mrs Dalloway. I love how each name and life style and conditions were chosen, such as locations, and how all the segments are intertwined to form one story, and yet form unique plots as they unravel individually.

Of note to other veggies and vegans like me : there are several scenes with non-veg foods. most are short, lasting a few seconds, but a couple of them last about 2-3 minutes each. 

Casting : 

Nicole Kidman,  Stephen Dillane, Miranda Richardson, Lyndsey Marshal,  Linda Bassett, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Jack Rovello, Toni Collette, Margo Martindale, Meryl Streep, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Claire Danes, Jeff Daniels, (et al.)