The Hours **** (2002, Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Ed Harris) – Classic Movie Review 430

Director Stephen Daldry’s heart-breaking, distinguished 2002 drama is based on the novel by the Pulitzer prize-winning author Michael Cunningham. As a grand showcase for three great Hollywood actresses this can’t be faulted. Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore are amazing as the women in different ages, who all come under the spell of a novel that Virginia Woolf is writing. It’s the novel Mrs Dalloway that affects these three generations of women, who all have had to deal with suicide in their lives.

Kidman plays Virginia Woolf herself in the 1920s, very impressively, with a perfect Twenties English accent and a silly false nose. First seen trying to commit suicide, Woolf is writing her novel Mrs Dalloway. Stephen Dillane is Virginia’s husband, Leonard Woolf and Miranda Richardson is her sister Vanessa Bell.

Streep plays Clarissa Vaughn, a present-day New Yorker, caring for her one-time lover, Richard (Ed Harris), a famous poet and author dying of AIDS.  Clarissa is throwing a party for him.

Then, in 1951, Moore plays Laura Brown, a seemingly happily married mom, who’s actually desperate to be rid of her stifling husband and son. Laura, a pregnant housewife, is planning a party for her husband, but she can’t stop reading Mrs Dalloway.

Kidman won the Oscar as best actress, though the eight other nominations (including Moore and Harris’s support performances) weren’t turned into wins. But Kidman’s is not really a star role. She’s only on screen for 28 minutes, compared with Moore for 33 minutes and Streep for 42 minutes. Moore was also nominated for Best Actress in Far from Heaven in 2002, but she didn’t win that either and by 2103 surprisingly hasn’t won an Oscar after four nominations.

John C Reilly, Jack Rovello, Toni Collettte, Margo Martindale, Colin Stinton, Allison Janney, Claire Danes, Jeff Daniels, Eileen Atkins are mong the remarkable cast who also give choice performances.

David Hare’s screenplay is a polished piece of work, while Philip Glass’s score and Ann Roth’s costume designs help to ensure a beautifully smooth production.

Kidman said in 2103: ‘Walking into the river with those stones in my pockets – I chose life. At the time, I was at a low point, and by playing her [Virginia Woolf], it put me into a place of appreciating life. She said her special moment of winning an Oscar was overshadowed by the pain she felt following from her divorce from Tom Cruise. Winning such a prestigious award ‘can show you the emptiness of your own life, which is kind of what it showed me,’ she added.

Michael Cunningham also wrote the novel and screenplay for A Home at the End of the World (2004) with Colin Farrell.

By 2013, Harris, like Moore, also surprisingly hasn’t won an Oscar after four nominations.

Eileen Atkins, who plays Barbara in the flower shop, wrote the screenplay for the film of Mrs Dalloway.

The Woolfs’ railway scene was filmed at the old Loughborough Central Station, Leicestershire, over three days, more than 100 miles from the station depicted at Richmond. The 1920s steam train came from the Isle of Wight and was taken by lorry to Loughborough.

A year after the original filming, Moore was recalled to play her final scene as the older Laura. Ironically by this time she was seven months pregnant, having had to wear a fake stomach when she played the younger version of her character.

This film was disqualified for nomination for the Best Makeup Oscar because digital touch-ups were done on close-ups of Kidman to make her fake nose seem seamless.

(C) Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Film Review 430 derekwinnert.com