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Rating: 3 out of 5
While watching this film and looking at how the characters are connected, I found it fascinating how one book can affect someone’s life. As a person who has tried to read more, I found some connections with some books, and others were meh to me. In this film, one book affects three generations over 80 years. The movie runs over a single day in each person’s life, and boy, does each one deal with some major sugar honey iced tea. I will say that the movie does jump between the three women involved. Sometimes it can get a little muddled when jumping from Virginia to Clarissa to Laura.
Let’s start this shindig with Virginia Woolf’s storyline, which begins in 1923. The movie showed her outcome at the start with her drowning herself. Virginia (Kidman) and her husband, Leonard, moved from London to her hometown of Richmond because she has experienced several nervous breakdowns, dealing with depression, and has tried to commit suicide. The reason for the move is to keep a major eye on her. She has begun writing the book Mrs. Dalloway; throughout her day, she is visited by her sister and children. You can see the pain in Virginia’s eyes as she wants to have what her sister, Vanessa has, loving children, and to be back in London. When her sister is about to depart, you see that she really wants her to stay but can’t. When Virginia sneaks out to the train station, her husband finds her, and they argue. She passionately tells her husband that she is miserable, and they decide to return. The significance of Virginia is her plan to initially kill off the heroine in her book but chooses to kill someone else. When Leonard questions her as to why someone has to die. Virginia replies, “In order that the rest of us should value life more.” Leonard asks who will die, and Virginia says, “The poet will die, the visionary.”
Now let’s get to the middle section that happens in 1951. I found this section boring because there wasn’t much to it, but it served as the major connector between the two generations. I thought it was the weakest of the three generations. Laura Brown (Moore) is pregnant with her second child and spends her life as a housewife in Los Angeles with her young son, Richie. She escapes the mundane life by reading Mrs. Dalloway. She is married to a loving husband, Dan (Riley), who fought in World War II. On the surface, they look like the “perfect” couple living the American Dream but underneath, Laura is freakin miserable and depressed. The day is Dan’s birthday, and she and Richie plan on making a birthday cake. It ends in disaster, but her neighbor Kitty comes through to help with her dog. Kitty can’t get pregnant, and she feels worthless. Somehow, they kiss, and things become awkward. Laura decides to make another cake with Richie, which comes out perfectly. Laura decides to leave Richie with a babysitter because she plans to end her life by checking into a hotel and overdosing on pills. She begins to read Mrs. Dalloway, and after dreaming a strange dream, she has a change of heart. She picks up Richie, and they return home to celebrate Dan’s birthday.
The 2001 generation is the one with the most drama. Clarissa Vaughan (Streep) is a literary editor in New York City. Her connection to Virginia is that she shares the first name with the novel’s title character. Her day is spent preparing to host a party in honor of her friend and ex-lover Richard (Harris), a pain in the ass, moody author living with AIDS and about to receive a major literary award. Clarissa and Richard used to get it on back when they were in college. Clarissa has been in a relationship for the past 10 years with a female partner named Sally. Their relationship is straight trash as Sally is having an affair. Clarissa is the only one who takes care of Richard. Their relationship is quite strange to me as Richard refers to her as “Mrs. Dalloway” because she distracts herself from her own life the way that the Woolf character does. In the end, shit goes down as Richard kills himself, but before he does, he tells Clarrisa that he has only stayed alive for her sake and that the award is meaningless. The big reveal in this generation is that Richard is the little boy, Richie and his mother is Laura. Laura abandoned her family the day after her second child was born.
That is the synopsis and how the movie rolls. I am in between with it overall. It’s not an overly impressive movie; to me, the book Mrs. Dalloway is a connector. Still, I didn’t feel like it had such a strong impression to make significant changes. For example, yeah, Clarrisa has the first name of the title character, but it wasn’t like the book impacted her life. It might’ve affected Richard more, but, in the film, it seemed like the book her wrote a book that everyone else talked about.
As far as the acting goes, some people stand out, and some I couldn’t understand why they were applauded. Nicole Kidman, as Virginia Woolf, highlighted this film. It had to be the freakin nose because it was a distraction. I will say that she was the strongest of the three women. She showed how much of a mental illness Virginia had but also the fear she had within herself to live and be happy. Kidman did an outstanding job; I enjoyed watching her in this role.
Ed Harris as Richard “Richie” Brown was the second person who did an outstanding job. He was animated, crazy, moody, a pain in the ass, and depressed, all in the same character. You didn’t know if he was acting this way because he knew he would die or wanted to be isolated. When he got high by mixing pills, Harris made sure to show that he seemed free before jumping to his death.
Julianne Moore as Laura Brown was meh to me, to be honest. She made her character seem clueless or have a mask on. She seemed happy but really was depressed. For the longest while, I thought she was an airhead; maybe that is why I wasn’t invested in this character. Finally, there is Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughan. Meryl was Meryl in this role, and she can do no wrong. Was it her finest role? Nope, but she had the most drama, and I will always love watching Meryl act.
The Hours is an okay film in my eyes. It revolves around three generations of women. Each one is connected in some way to a particular book. The acting holds this film together, but it is one of those films that could be easily forgotten. I guess what you can do is find that one book that will inspire you.
