"The Hours"

Maybe my tastes are just not refined enough, but I thought "The Hours" was very, very boring. I've heard people say it's about life, sadness...just a story about people. The ONLY thing I thought was good was the acting.....the plot seemed dull. I kept hoping it would get better, but by the end I just wanted my 2 hours back to watch something better. It didn't really seem to have much of a point. I guess those 'critically acclaimed' films are just too deep for me

I thought at first this movie was a bit confusing, but I gradually learned how each of the women in the different time periods connected.

Not the best movie, but I'd say it's worth watching. Great acting on everyone's part, but it was sooooo weird to see Nicole Kidman looking very plain and homely.

I read The Hours a few weeks ago. The book the film was based on won the Pulitzer Prize. I don't remember the last time I was so deeply moved by a book. As for the film, I haven't seen "Chicago" but it escapes me why the Academy chose that film over this. And if ever an actress deserved her Oscar, it is Nicole Kidman.

For those who wonder what The Hours is about: it's one day in the lives of three women in three different worlds (1923 England, 1950s Los Angeles, 2001 NYC) who have nothing in common (it seems) but Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway: one is writing it, another reading it, and a third, apparently living it.

Kathy and I watched the film a couple of nights ago. In the book, the relationship between the characters portrayed by Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore (I don't want to say more--don't want to spoil it) isn't made explicit until the very end. I'm sure others probably divined it much earlier than I did, but I didn't see it until the last few pages of the novel.

Moreover, the last scene of the film is different from the book. The story and outcome aren't changed, just brought into starker focus. I don't even remember if what Claire Danes' character says ("So, that's the monster") is fully explained at all. Again, others reading the book may know what has gone on in those characters' lives, but what made Moore's character "the monster" was far more subtly revealed in the book.

(Does any of this make sense?)

Finally, I was just wrecked by the film for two reasons. First, my best friend, back home in California, somewhat resembles Ed Harris--mostly bald, intense, and with gorgeous, piercing eyes. (He's even hairier than Harris <shudder>). He's also HIV+, although, thankfully, quite healthy. But I miss him desperately, and seeing Harris portray a gay man in such misery, so far away from my beloved Dale, broke my heart.

Second, my mother started out in marriage similarly to Moore's character. Think of that character's actions after she dropped her young boy off at the sitter's... then think of her final words in the film. Would to God that my mother had chosen life.

I can't imagine I will ever be more deeply moved by a book or a film than I was by The Hours. I highly recommend renting the DVD.