Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

merelyaninnuendo The HoursA smart intake on a parallel plotline that unfortunately loses its way down the road as it ages on screen resulting onto scattered thoughts that may be poetic but is surely redundant by then. David Hare's screenplay isn't that smart as it looks which then makes it disappointing as it never manages to come out from the self created loop. Stephen Daldry has done a marvelous work on executing this eerie world that it surpasses its scripts potential. Its strength obviously lies on performance due to such a big and brilliant cast like Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, John C. Riley and Allison Janey. The Hours is surely an important feature as it raises some thought provoking questions and satisfactorily proves its point but the question it begs the most is, is it entertaining or not.

Katherine Confer-Jacobs I hesitated to watch this movie as it has an all female cast in the main roles, but since Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman are outstanding actors I gave it a shot. What a huge waste of my time! The only thing I can say that was good about this film was that it was intriguing enough to compel me to view it twice in order to understand what it was all about which was a study of two morose women, who cared for no one but themselves and a third, played by Streep, who was like a flighty bird flitting from being a happy party giver to one who is mourning a lost moment of happiness while still caring for the man she once loved. Amazing that so many viewers saw these self absorbed women as anything but pathetic creatures.

GertrudeStern Honestly, there is no exclamatory phrase in the tool belt of even a happy-mouthed Guy Fieri that can do justice to how strictly enjoyable The Hours is, especially for it's subject matter. It's basically an infinite recursion of intertextual frame narratives that center on the novel Mrs. Dalloway, which I had not read, but am currently reading...because of this movie.The screenplay is tight, hyper-aware of what it is doing and does so without feeling cumbersome much of the time. There is a particularly perfect spot where Meryl Streep's character discusses 'prescience', which is really the theme of the whole movie, and maybe even of Mrs. Dalloway...more to come on that.Bonus points: Nicole Kidman is unrecognizable, and really ceases to be herself while assuming Virginia Woolf, Phil Glass NAILS it on a score that ebbs and flows with the film's surrendering subjects and there's even a gorgeous scene where a hotel room quickly becomes what may or may not be Julianne Moore's final self-inflicted watery grave.

brchthethird Why do people kill themselves? That is one of the central questions/themes that THE HOURS explores. Unfolding across three different time periods, this film tells the story of how the novel "Mrs. Dalloway" affects different women who have had to deal with suicide (or suicidal thoughts) in their lives. It stars Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf (who wrote "Mrs. Dalloway"), Julianne Moore as Laura, and Meryl Streep as Clarissa. Virginia Woolf, who has some mental health issues, is mostly confined to a country home with her husband and writes "Mrs. Dalloway" as a way to cope with her situation. Laura is a 1950's suburban housewife who, despite her external appearance, is very unhappy with her boring life. And then there's Clarissa, who is in a committed lesbian relationship and is planning a party for her writer friend Richard, who is also dying of AIDS. All three women have similar stresses and one of the strong points of the film is the way it seamlessly moves between each time period while still telling a unified story. It also deals with some weighty themes that will give you a lot to ponder aside from the key issue of suicide. Among these are social pressures and expectations, selflessness versus selfishness, what makes a person happy, etc. The acting supporting these elements was also top-notch, as would be expected from the outstanding cast, and each of the three lead actresses gets a scene in which to shine. I should also mention Philip Glass' score, which I was actually familiar with prior to seeing the film. I felt like his music was perfectly suited to the material, accurately conveying the sense of isolation, melancholy, and ennui common to all three of the central characters. However, the film's structure is partly its undoing, although not disastrously so. A lot of the dialogue is pretty on-the-nose, and the juxtaposition of scenes basically tells the audience how they should interpret what they're seeing rather than let them figure things out on their own. Still, the repetition of key dialogue from different characters and using match cuts to transition between time periods was an effective way to unify the narrative, as well as provide needed continuity. When it comes down to it, THE HOURS is a very well-made and well-acted film that deals with heavy themes and emotions, even if in a slightly pretentious way. This isn't a film I can see watching that often, if even a second time, but the potential for discussion and/or self-assessment makes this definitely worth seeing.