There are some films out there that like to be deep, like to be clever and like to be intelligent. There are films out there that pull this off well, that can be thought-provoking, incisive and 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', speaking figuratively of course, and then everybody goes wild with laughter, ('hahaha, that film must be boring' they think to themselves) well this film actually does have that effect. As soon as I finish writing this review I am about to head down to my local pharmacist, armed with a copy of this 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 hadn't watched a film but had instead been given a lecture.

What struck me more than anything about this film is that the characters are so unlikeable and hideous that this forms a stumbling block in my mind before I can even begin to appreciate the film. Julianne Moore's character, a woman living an idyllic suburban life with a husband and child, is misfiring badly, just what is going on with her? Do real people behave like this? Do real women drop everything because one book, ONE BOOK, has such a dramatic impact on their life that they suddenly decide to reconsider their whole life, whether they are a good mother and wife? The answer is no, real people aren't like that. Laura Brown is an awfully romanticised, unbelievably pretentious caricature of what Daldry, and possibly Cunningham, believes women are like. Moore does her best with a contrived and weak script but she cannot bring the character to life. Her moments are awfully ponderous, as though she is permanently contemplating the meaning of life, and it is hard to have any sympathy for a character who comes across as so unlikeable. The character of Virginia Woolf, is, again, a bad caricature, a stereotype of a woman on the verge of a breakdown, the struggling author forever suffering with writer's block, the woman coming to terms with her lesbianism - the direction and writing of this film is so contrived, patronising and stereotypical it borders on the offensive. The film doesn't aim for entertainment but aims as 'life lessons' for the audience, the director is trying to show us just how clever he is, when it isn't clever at all, it's over-intellectualised, melodramatic rubbish. The despair of Woolf's life is made impossible to empathise with when the character is so distanced from any kind of reality. She is cold, distanced and a very dark character, who comes across as extremely rude and arrogant. I cannot comment on how it is in the novel, but the script and direction here does Kidman no justice at all. Are we meant to feel sorry for poor, poor Virginia, a woman who is absurdly foul and obnoxious, a woman who barks orders at her hard-working servants and affords them no praise despite having them bend over a backwards to please her, a woman whose problems are so forced and contrived? That Kidman won an Oscar for her performance is worrying enough - what exactly does she do in this film to deserve it other than sulk and scream at people? She isn't even in it for half the time! Perhaps the Academy were offering her an Oscar by way of an apology for missing her out for the previous year's 'Moulin Rouge'...

The melodrama of this film also bugs the heck out of me. The drama is so forced, the emotion is so sign-posted, 'cry now' etc. that is starts to wear a little bit thin even after the first fifteen minutes, by which time I wondered whether allowing my friends to rent such a film was a good idea after all (I'd heard it was Oscar-worthy, 'hmmmm, might be good' I thought, how wrong I was). That the film is considered in the same bracket as some all-time classics, and this has been mentioned by same idiotic film reviewers (who are either both blind and deaf, or have probably only ever seen this and 'American Pie 2' so have no benchmark for comparison), is absurd and a sad commentary about the kind of people who actually found this film to be fantastic, which is quite plainly isn't. Those awful accents, that patronising characters, those stilted emotions, the cryptic symbolism and use of metaphor, the right-on, politically-correct, quota-filling use of homosexuality, the constant pondering where the audience are challenged by people evidently more intelligent than our good selves to think deeper about matters such as the meaning of life. The symbolism of the film is patently obvious and, again, aims to be deep, clever, intelligent, when to anybody with half a brain can decipher what the director wants to achieve and can, with any luck, see that we, as an audience, are quite clearly being patronised. The constant literary references (almost thrown out in a 'check-the-boxes' manner) actively tell the audience that we couldn't possibly understand this film, heck no, we aren't clever or well-read enough. Hopefully some audience members are clever enough to see through this veil of intelligence and see the wooden heart of this film.