The Hours (2002)

Nominee

YAY!! First post of July!!! Very exciting!!!

Okay so I am going to start of this whole thing by admitting overall I did not like this film and I think it was only one part of the whole project that ruined it for me...the directing...but before I leap into a tirade on that I would first like to give credit to the other parts of this film which were actually very good.

The story as a whole is an interesting idea. We have three generations of women being affected by the novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf who is writing it, Laura Brown who is reading it in her 1950's picturesque life, and Clarissa Vaughan who for all intensive purposes is Mrs. Dalloway in the modern world. The inter-connectedness is sharp, and well represented. It is intriguing to see Woolf writing and know that it is going to spiral down to the other two plots. So yes this was a plot worth making into a movie.

Then we have the acting. It was superb. Nicole Kidman is astonishing, you still see parts of her, however certainly she immersed herself into character. She brings her subtle confidence while also displaying Woolf, a woman with inner turmoil. She deserved her Oscar. Then there is Julianne Moore who also did a respectable job but her performance was probably the most brutally ruined by the direction. Then of course there is Meryl Streep...she is Meryl Streep she understands how to act, she is going to be good.

The score though minimalist was pleasing, and one more shout out before my tirade: MAKE UP!!! WOW!!! I would say for the first ten minutes all you can think about is...THAT'S NICOLE KIDMAN???? Very impressive.

Okay...Directing...was horrible. You could tell from the very beginning that the director was fixated on displaying the deep messages about life in the story, instead of telling the story and letting the audience discover what it means. In addition, the pretentiousness that was shown in the shooting was both irritating and distracting. This was most clearly displayed in the pacing. The shots were often too prolonged, I think because the director was putting so much into the deepness and art aspect of film making that he was babying his audience. He thought they would need long artsy shots to get his point when in actuality, we got it at the beginning of the shot and as he draws it out it feels painful. So many times I wanted to stand up and scream to the rooftops: I GOT IT ALREADY!!!! Also this really damaged the script, lines that otherwise would have been fine became cheesy because they were given to much time. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, it hurt some of the acting. Julianne Moore was good but because her plot is in part about displaying the mundane lifestyle of a 1950's housewife it was already slow and then he slowed THAT down...it was not only painful it was awkward to watch.

Overall: Some aspects were impressive, and some of the shots were beautiful but I think Stephen Daldry would have made a better painter than a director. He was to fixated on what was lying under the story rather than the story itself. This may just be my opinion but you lose what could be a great film that way, and here we lost one.