Hardly any time for ciao still...work and personal life issues prevail :p But I found time to post a...
Hardly any time for ciao still...work and personal life issues prevail :p But I found time to post a new review and will now read a little of what I missed! OMG.. I was gone for a while and everybody turned orange! :o -need to change that horrid pic!-
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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 me, too.
Three women in their search 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 which was briliant, but also for how much she could be shaped into Virginia Woolf), I was amazed by Streep's performance and what she made of her role. I won't deny it - being a lesbian I do appreciate the topic being brought into a mainstream movie and we probably couldn't ask for a better performer. Nicole Kidman convinced me she really was Virginia Woolf, looking perfectly Victorian and authentic in her long grey-mouse dresses and clumsy shoes. Julianne Moore surprised me, her role was kinda on the side, but she made the most of it and even if before seeing the movie I thought I wouldn't put her into such a part, she did really well.
Special effects I really liked the spontaneous shifting from one story into another, where the
stories are connected with simple details. Make-up and masking deserves its own praise as well, especially for the transformation of Nicole Kidman into Virginia Woolf by remodelling her nose completely, hiding the cute Kidman's face to make the most of her acting; you almost wouldn't believe it's her!
Links and connections The film is based on the same-titled book by Michael Cunningham, securing him the Pulitzer. I haven't read the book, somehow I didn't feel like and only seeing it in shops, thin and tiny, I felt like I'd be disappointed. It tells three stories paralelly, trying to joint them in the right details and moments, which mostly worked.
The factor of reality in the story of The Hours is underlined by basing the whole story on a real person - Virginia Adeline Stephen-Woolf, an English writer born in the late 19th century. Her life was an emotional slide, because this well-educated woman, who is often regarded as one of the most important early-modern female writers, had a whirlful childhood living in a family in complicated relations, she was probably a subject to abuse of her brothers and she started to suffer mental breakdowns since her early teen age. She married Leonard Woolf, a writer and despite their marriage is said to had been happy, Virginia wasn't completely straight and innocent when it came to her girlfriends.
Storyline
Besides Virginia we have two fictional characters, whose stories are entangled on the background of Virginia's book Mrs.Dalloway she's just starting to write while in the home confinement "rehab" outside London.
I tried to look at the characters from a different angle and applied the evolution theory on them, so they wouldn't be three different women, but just one, whom we can watch in more lives as she develops. Back in the 19th century she lives in the shell of Virginia Woolf, a valued writer who suffers from inner feelings she can't explain to herself nor to others and is diagnosed a weak-nerved weirdo, most probably spoilt by the sinful life in London and therefore she's recommended a harmless environment (this is not exactly following Virginia's bio) outside the city to sort out her head (or to tuck her away neatly, if you like). Virginia suffers even more being pulled away from the lively London to a sleepy hollow where the only thing left for her is writing and she's restless longing to go back. Her husband Leonard's attempts to "save" her fall flat and in the end this good-hearted man is left behind by Virginia who can't cope with the world anymore and finds her temporary peace in deep water. She's born again as Laura Brown in the 50s, happy-go-lucky era in American history. Golden boys are back from the war, celebrated as heroes and they live spotless lives in their dream houses with dream wives and kids, all is pink and perfect. Just like Barbie and Ken, besides she isn't happy and can't stand her only job to be a wife in such a toyhouse world. She collects all the chips of her courage in the attempt to commit a suicide by drowning again, yet this time she's not strong enough and in the last moment steps back. All good things are the three, so she lives long enough to meet her modern self called Clarissa Vaughan, an emancipated self-established lesbian. At this point it seems like she has finally found her place, but the past haunts her even if she boldly faces it.
Story is very simple: All the characters are getting ready for a party - Virginia has her sister Vanessa arrive from London and she's impatient to see her, longing to smell the atmosphere of the centre of life, but she is to be disappointed in the end. Laura tries to be a good wife and make a cheerful birthday for her husband Dan. Baking a cake she's under the supervision of her little son Richie, who makes her feel utterly nervous, there's an intermezzo with the neighbour Kitty and the whole day results both into a disaster and a turning point in her life. Clarissa wants to throw a party for her old ex-boyfriend Richard at the occassion of his being awarded a prize for literature. She's trying to be a perfect host and set up all details including the most important guest - Richard himself, because he refuses to take part in the fun.
As the story's being told we ravel out the tangle of relations among the characters to come to the, for someone probably obvious, but since I was so caught in the story, for me it was a surprising ending.
The three-character storyline also nudged me into considering the three as contents of one person according to Freud's analysis, where Virginia herself is the ego, not only because she is the writer who controls the story and however tragic, she takes the fate in her own hands. Laura is the id, she acts on feelings and instincts, no matter how much only in her own head they might exist; while Clarissa, the superego, stands for the social influence as she is most affected by people around her, she actually has friends and family she can live for and she cares about what she looks like to the world. This is another thinking point of the film - the only character who "has got a life" here is a lesbian.
Besides the main plot there is a lot of little talked issues mentioned, such as homosexuality, the AIDS, which help to set the story into background familiar to us. It's an analogy to Mrs. Dalloway, one day in a woman's life setting up a party, as complicated as it can be, with all the thousand other things that happen just by the way.
Main Cast Virginia Woolf - Nicole Kidman - she has won the Oscar for the best actress in leading role Clarissa Vaughan - Meryl Streep Laura Brown - Julianne Moore Richard Brown - Ed Harris
Original language: English Length: 109 minutes Director: Stephen Daldry Screenplay: Michael Cunningham
The DVD contains extras from the filming and trailers.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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An adaptation of the novel by Michael Cunningham this is the story of three women living ... more
in different time periods of the Twentieth Century all linked by a work of literature. In 1923 Virginia Woolf starts to write her novel 'Mrs Dalloway' whilst stru...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
A trio of the screen's best actresses - two-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep (Best ... more
Actress, Sophie's Choice, 1982; Best Supporting Actress, Kramer Vs. Kramer, 1979), Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman (Best Actress, The Hours 2003) and Julianne M...
Advantages: Great chemistry between Chan and Tucker. Ridiculously entertaining. Disadvantages: About as substantial as...(Insert your own Chinese food joke here)
Plissken 08.09.2001 ·
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