The Hours (DVD)

Having read the book, and it coming in my top two books of all time (just below Wuthering Heights), then reading the screenplay, and basically knowing where and when everything was going to happen, I was pretty certain that I wouldn’t enjoy The Hours, the film, as much as I would have if I didn’t know so much about it. But the greatness was something much more than the good acting, the clever story, or even the nice settings; the greatness ...
...though so different, are somewhat the same. The rough plot is very simple and clever. Basically, the whole plot is set around three women in different decades of the 20th Century. One in the beginning, the other in the middle, and the final in the later years. The whole film is one day in each woman’s life. All three women have a likeness, and a link to each other. That link is carried throughout the film, and is basically the basis of it. ...

Mattroberts 16.11.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...I was disappointed, to say the least. I've been told by someone who read the book on which this film was based that the movie is a good complement to the book. Without having read the book (nor 'Mrs Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf, which is referenced many times throughout the film), I felt that 'The Hours' was incomplete and superficial. We are presented with three stories of three women, none of which are developed in a satisfactory manner. It tried ...
...The first woman is Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman, with a now-infamous fake nose) an actual British writer who suffered from depression throughout her life and committed suicide by drowning herself in a river. In the film, Virginia's husband Leonard seems very concerned for his wife's health. Leonard moves Virginia out of central London to suburban Richmond because he thinks it will improve her health. Virginia is miserable, however, and says she'd ...

OKkaraoke 04.04.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...movie "The Hours" (which is the working title of Virginia Woolf's novel "Mrs. Dalloway") is an adaptation of the Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Michael Cunningham. This movie revolves around the story of three depressed and alienated women living in different time periods of the Twentieth Century and searching for love. Yet all of them at some point are compelled towards committing suicide, their struggle of choosing between life and death. The ...
...Alison Janney ABOUT THE MOVIE This film features three women from three different time periods who face depression, dissatisfaction, and ultimately the option of suicide. Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) I didn't recognize Nichole Kidman in this character; the work of artistic makeup have given her a completely new look. Well this character profiles a writer, mentally ill and chronically depressed, as she writes her novel Mrs. Dalloway in rural ...

hinasif76 22.04.2005 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

== The Hours == I simply loved this film, it's one of my most favourite movies ever! I've watched it repeatedly since its premiere I went to see to the cinema with my best friend. When we got out, we were both stunned and later she said she didn't know what was supposed to happen after the end of the film, whether we'd start kissing or if the world was just gonna end. I don't mean to be pathetic, but the emotional impression was really deep for ...
...happiness_ reads the subtitle. We'll come to find the obvious - there is no such a perfect life or happiness, since the life always has new quests to drag us through and it's up to us to find something that can make us happy for a while. Difficult as it is, we'll see it on three examples. '''Performance''' I'm in love with Meryl Streep and even if this movie has brought another spoonful of fame particularly to Nicole Kidman (not only for her performance ...

jeaniecz 18.03.2008 (16.03.2008) · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...cutting-edge. 'The Hours', based on the novel by Michael Cunningham (which, I admit to you now, I haven't read), is not one of these films. Stephen Daldry's translation of the novel is a sprawling, unwatchable mess and a waste of three remarkably talented actresses. Perhaps I missed the point of the film, but quite simply this was the most boring, limp, lifeless film I have ever seen. You know the films where you say that they 'sent you to sleep', ...
...awful film, to reccommend to the delightful person behind the counter, always armed with a sunny smile and friendly disposition, that they offer 'The Hours' as a cure for insomnia. Those people that complain 'I can't get no sleep' will, within minutes of watching this tepid, dull film will soon find that they can doze off for hours on end. Even worse, I found the film to be truly insulting and patronising and by the end of the movie I felt like I ...

Ryan74 15.10.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...that is more accomplished than the rest - regardless of Kidman being singled out by gaining a Best Actress Oscar. These are three fantastically detailed performances, from three obviously talented women that are only strengthened by a supporting cast that cannot be faulted. Adapted from Michael Cunningham's book of the same name, 'The Hours' is set in three different eras, and charts a momentous day in the life of each of our three central characters. ...
...- whose simultaneous unravelling exposes the similarities in their lives. It is 1925 in England, and Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) believes she may have the first sentence for her fourth novel, 'Mrs Dalloway' (the inspiration for Cunningham's book). It is 1951 in Los Angeles and Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is reading 'Mrs Dalloway', forcing her to confront her unhappiness as a suburban housewife through the baking of a cake for her husband's birthday. ...

ickkate 09.10.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...you avoided this one at the cinema either because you know nothing about the person or the work of Virginia Woolf, or because you found the much-hyped ‘suicide’ theme off-putting…forget all that. Go buy or rent this film. Send the men off to the pub or their reading group or whatever, and sit back and enjoy. It is an unashamedly feminine film. The focus is three completely differently lives of three unrelated women, decades apart. ...
...20s/30s style for most of the time, but very strong in the subdued anger moments, and touching in her interactions with the children, especially her young niece. All this rounded off with a wonderful outburst of uncontrolled passion, somehow almost-but-not-quite-subdued by love for the unfortunate helpmeet (whose response is just too adorably English for words!) Was Woolf mad, or ‘just’ depressed? I don’t know. If this portrayal ...

hiker 05.03.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

Tonight, I’ve watched the movie “The Hours”; a movie which is deeply affecting - as I reflect on what happened and what did not, in the lives of Virginia Woolf the famous author, “Mrs Dalloway”, her novel, and a series of different people, whose lives seemed to be entwined between early 20th Century Britain and 21st century America. The movie relates the tale of three women and their lives at different times in the past. The first is Virginia Woolf, ...
...the movie is based on a time in 1920’s Richmond, England. Then we meet Laura, and the date is 1941 in Sussex. Laura’s husband is at war, and she is reading the novel Mrs Dalloway, which Virginia Woolf struggled to have published in the 1920’s. The third woman in the movie is Clarissa, and she is a 21st century Mrs Dalloway, totally in love with her gay friend Richard, who is himself a great writer/poet and dying of aids. The movie flicks between ...

ClaireG86 23.11.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...eras in time === The tagline for _The Hours_ says it all; three different women. All living a lie. Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore, arguably three of the most talented actresses to grace our screens at this time, are the central roles to the story. The first scene falls to all three characters, one writing a book, one reading the line she has written 30 years later, and another acting out said line in real life in contemporary day. ...
...major Hollywood names appear in the film; John C Reilly, Toni Colette, Allison Janney, Miranda Richardson, Ed Harris, Claire Danes. In my opinion these characters add to the mystery created, and continue their reasons for the lie in which they live. Clarissa Vaughan helps her previous lover, Richard through AIDS, thus showing us the pain she holds inside. Her current lover, Sally and her daughter Julia are seen to be unknowing of her true feelings. ...

jenniewren26 07.06.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...within Virginia Wood's mind during the 20th century. Very rich, emotional and a worthwhile watch. The main characters are 3 strong women, who have to each battle with unhappy lives - Kidman has to stay alive because of her husband and his expectations, Moore has to stay alive because of her son, Streep is the only one not on suicide watch who actually lives to make her dying husband (Harris) happy in his final days, but she is fairly unhinged nonetheless ...
...the other 2 women. Very well acted, each character showing depth and stregth for the times (different stages of the 20th century - Kidman early 20's, Moore 50 or 60's, Streep 90's). Also, Streep's part allows an insight to dealing with a partner who has AIDS, whilst also showing how the AIDS sufferer feels, a viewpoint sometimes lacking in films that try to show an insight into this subject-matter (excluding Philadelphia and more recent films). ...

SophieWehr 10.06.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...was regarded as one of the best films of 2002. This film has three stories, spanning over a few decades, dealing with the lives of three women. A woman(Meryl Streep) planning to throw a party for his writer friend who suffers from AIDS in 2001, a pregnant wife awaiting her husband's birthday party in the 1950's and an author named Virginia Woolf writing her novel "the hours" in the 1930's. Its the novel that binds them together, and also their state ...
...From the first scene itself, the film binds you with its story-telling.There's something really honest, really sincere about this film. Emotions are mostly kept inside, it is more thoughtful, rather than verbal. It is essentially about what all three women are going through in their lives, battling depression and confusion in life in their own ways. All three stories are fabulous and there's hardly a weak link in the movie. This is not a movie on ...

aadnan613 08.07.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...in and I found both the characters, soundtrack and story incredibly compelling. The Oscar nominations were deserved. Although the plot in some respects is straight-forward, three woman at three points in time, it is difficult to fully explain what is to happen and how their three lives become intertwined. That said, it is worth devoting an evening to this and making sure there are no distractions, to fully appreciate the atmosphere created by Stephen ...
...myself afterwards and think about the choices you make in life and how we treat others. I don't mean to be too serious(!) but you need to be opened-minded and committed to this film right to the end to fully enjoy. Despite this glowing review, I recommend renting as opposed to buying though! ...

marcberryman 17.06.2008 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)

...first fell in love with the book by Michael Cunningham and when I saw who was making the film (the director of Billy Eliot and the recent Kate Winslet winner "The Reader"), I went to see it on screen and then on DVD and was not disappointed It is the winning combination of a great script, Virginia Wolf, sublime actresses (Nicole Kidman won her Oscar for this film), the atmosphere and the music by Philip Glass. I won't give the story away but is ...
...in the life of three woman separated by time but inextricably linked one way or another. Nicole Kidman plays Virgina Wolf, Meryl Streep plays a modern day Mrs Dalloway preparing a party for a dying friend who is to be awarded a literary prize and Julianne Moore plays an unfulfilled 1950s housewife who has to take a life changing decision. All this is weaved together by exquisite editing and a haunting soundtrack that literally mesmerises. I thoroughly ...

simonspain 01.06.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Hours (DVD)