The Hours (film) 1

The Hours (film)

For other uses, see The Hours.

The Hours
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Stephen Daldry

Produced by Robert Fox

Scott Rudin

Written by David Hare

Based on The Hours

by Michael Cunningham

Starring Meryl Streep

Nicole Kidman
Julianne Moore

Music by Philip Glass

Cinematography Seamus McGarvey

Edited by Peter Boyle

Distributed by Paramount Pictures (US)

Miramax Films (worldwide)

Release date(s) • December 25, 2002 (United States)

• February 14, 2003 (United Kingdom)

Running time 114 minutes

Country United Kingdom

United States

Language English

Budget $25 million

Box office $108,846,072

The Hours is a 2002 drama film directed by Stephen Daldry, and starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne
Moore and Ed Harris. The screenplay by David Hare is based on the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same
title by Michael Cunningham.
The plot focuses on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novel Mrs Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf. These are Clarissa Vaughan (Streep), a New Yorker preparing an award party for her
AIDS-stricken long-time friend and poet, Richard (Harris) in 2001; Laura Brown (Moore), a pregnant 1950s
California housewife with a young boy and an unhappy marriage; and Virginia Woolf (Kidman) herself in 1920s
England, who is struggling with depression and mental illness whilst trying to write her novel.
The film was released in Los Angeles and New York City on Christmas Day 2002, and was given a limited release
in the US and Canada two days later on December 27, 2002. It did not receive a wide release in the US until January
2003, and was then released in UK cinemas on Valentine's Day that year. Critical reaction to the film was mostly
positive, with nine Academy Award nominations for The Hours including Best Picture, and a win for Nicole Kidman
as Best Actress.
The Hours (film) 2

Plot
With the exception of the opening and final scenes, which depict the 1941 suicide by drowning of Virginia Woolf
(Nicole Kidman) in the River Ouse, the action takes place within the span of a single day in three different years, and
alternates among them throughout the film. In 1923, Virginia has begun writing the book Mrs Dalloway in her home
in the town of Richmond outside London. In 1951, troubled Los Angeles housewife Laura Brown (Julianne Moore)
escapes from her conventional life by reading Mrs Dalloway. In 2001, New Yorker Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep)
is the embodiment of the novel's title character, as she spends the day preparing for a party she is hosting in honor of
her former lover and friend Richard (Ed Harris), a poet and author living with AIDS who is to receive a major
literary award. Richard tells Clarissa he has stayed alive for her sake, and the award is meaningless because he didn't
get it sooner, until he was on the brink of death. She tells him she believes he would have won the award regardless
of his illness. Richard often refers to Clarissa as "Mrs. Dalloway", due to her distracting herself from her own life the
way the Woolf character does.
Virginia, who has experienced several nervous breakdowns and suffers from bipolar disorder, feels trapped in her
home. She is intimidated by servants and constantly under the eye of her husband Leonard (Stephen Dillane) who
has begun a publishing business, Hogarth Press, at home to stay close to her. Virginia both welcomes and dreads an
afternoon visit from her sister Vanessa (Miranda Richardson) and her children. After their departure, Virginia flees
to the railway station, where she is awaiting a train to central London, when Leonard arrives to bring her home. He
tells her how he lives in constant fear that she will take her own life. She says she fears it also, but argues that if she
is to live she has the right to decide how and where.
Pregnant with her second child, Laura spends her days in her tract home with her young son, Richie. She married her
husband, Dan (John C. Reilly), soon after World War II. On the surface they are living the American Dream, but she
is nonetheless deeply unhappy. She and Richie make a cake for Dan's birthday, but it is a disaster. Her neighbor
Kitty (Toni Collette) drops in to ask her if she can feed her dog while she's in the hospital for a procedure. Kitty
pretends to be upbeat, but Laura senses her fear and boldly kisses her on the lips; Kitty laughs it off as if it didn't
happen. Laura and Richie successfully make another cake and clean up, and then she takes Richie to stay with Mrs.
Latch (Margo Martindale). Richie runs after his mother as she leaves, fearing that she will never come back. Laura
checks into a hotel, where she intends to commit suicide. Laura removes several bottles of pills and Mrs. Dalloway
from her purse, and begins to read it. She drifts off to sleep, and dreams the hotel room is flooded. She awakens with
a change of heart, and caresses her belly. She picks up Richie and they return home to celebrate Dan's birthday.
Clarissa appears equally worried about Richard's depression and the party she is planning for him. Although Clarissa
herself is bisexual and has been living with Sally Lester (Allison Janney) for 10 years, she and Richard were lovers
during their college days. She meets with Richard's ex-lover Louis Waters (Jeff Daniels), who has returned for the
festivities. Clarissa's daughter, Julia (Claire Danes), comes home to help her prepare. Richard has taken a
combination of Xanax and Ritalin and tells Clarissa she is the most beautiful thing he ever had in life, before he
commits suicide in front of her. Later that night Laura, who is Richard's mother, arrives at Clarissa's apartment. It is
clear that Laura's abandonment of her family was deeply traumatic for Richard, but Laura reveals it was a better
decision for her to leave the family after the birth of her daughter, rather than commit suicide. She has led an
independent, happier life as a librarian in Canada. She does not apologize for the hurt she caused to her family (Dan
and their daughter are also both dead), and suggests that it's not possible to feel regret for something over which she
had no choice. She acknowledges that no one will forgive her, but offers an explanation: "It [her life] was death. I
chose life." When Julia visits Laura in her bedroom, she treats her with kindness and sensitivity that Laura does not
expect to receive.
The film ends with a line from Virginia's suicide note (in voiceover) in which she thanks Leonard for loving her:
"Always the years between us. Always the years. Always the love. Always the hours."
The Hours (film) 3

Cast
1923
• Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf
• Stephen Dillane as Leonard Woolf
• Miranda Richardson as Vanessa Bell
• Lyndsey Marshal as Lottie Hope
• Linda Bassett as Nelly Boxall
1951
• Julianne Moore as Laura Brown
• John C. Reilly as Dan Brown
• Jack Rovello as Richie Brown
• Toni Collette as Kitty
• Margo Martindale as Mrs. Latch
2001
• Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughan
• Ed Harris as Richard "Richie" Brown
• Allison Janney as Sally Lester
• Claire Danes as Julia Vaughan
• Jeff Daniels as Louis Waters
• Julianne Moore as Laura Brown (old)

Critical reception
The Hours has in 2010 81% positive reviews on the movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with 150 of 186
counted reviews giving it a "fresh" rating and an average rating of 7.4 out of 10 — with the consensus that "the
movie may be a downer, but it packs an emotional wallop. Some fine acting on display here." On Metacritic, the film
holds an average score of 81 out of 100, based on 39 reviews. The four main cast members were praised, especially
Nicole Kidman who won numerous of awards for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf including the Academy Award for
Best Actress.
Stephen Holden of The New York Times called the film "deeply moving" and "an amazingly faithful screen
adaptation" and added, "Although suicide eventually tempts three of the film's characters, The Hours is not an
unduly morbid film. Clear eyed and austerely balanced would be a more accurate description, along with
magnificently written and acted. Mr. Glass's surging minimalist score, with its air of cosmic abstraction, serves as
ideal connective tissue for a film that breaks down temporal barriers."
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle observed, "Director Stephen Daldry employs the wonderful things
cinema can do in order to realize aspects of The Hours that Cunningham could only hint at or approximate on the
page. The result is something rare, especially considering how fine the novel is, a film that's fuller and deeper than
the book ... It's marvelous to watch the ways in which [David Hare] consistently dramatizes the original material
without compromising its integrity or distorting its intent ... Cunningham's [novel] touched on notes of longing,
middle-aged angst and the sense of being a small consciousness in the midst of a grand mystery. But Daldry and
Hare's [film] sounds those notes and sends audiences out reverberating with them, exalted."
Richard Schickel of Time criticized its simplistic characterization, saying, "Watching The Hours, one finds oneself
focusing excessively on the unfortunate prosthetic nose Kidman affects in order to look more like the novelist. And
wondering why the screenwriter, David Hare, and the director, Stephen Daldry, turn Woolf, a woman of incisive
mind, into a hapless ditherer." He also criticized its overt politicization: "But this movie is in love with female
victimization. Moore's Laura is trapped in the suburban flatlands of the '50s, while Streep's Clarissa is moored in a
The Hours (film) 4

hopeless love for Laura's homosexual son (Ed Harris, in a truly ugly performance), an AIDS sufferer whose
relentless anger is directly traceable to Mom's long-ago desertion of him. Somehow, despite the complexity of the
film's structure, this all seems too simple-minded. Or should we perhaps say agenda driven? The same criticisms
might apply to the fact that both these fictional characters (and, it is hinted, Woolf herself) find what consolation
they can in a rather dispassionate lesbianism. This ultimately proves insufficient to lend meaning to their lives or
profundity to a grim and uninvolved film, for which Philip Glass unwittingly provides the perfect score — tuneless,
oppressive, droning, painfully self-important."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film, which he thought "sometimes stumbles on literary pretensions,"
three out of four stars. He praised the performances, commenting, "Kidman's acting is superlative, full of passion and
feeling ... Moore is wrenching in her scenes with Laura's son (Jack Rovello, an exceptional child actor). And Streep
is a miracle worker, building a character in the space between words and worlds. These three unimprovable actresses
make The Hours a thing of beauty."[1]
Steve Persall of the St. Petersburg Times said it "is the most finely crafted film of the past year that I never want to
sit through again. The performances are flawless, the screenplay is intelligently crafted, and the overall mood is
relentlessly bleak. It is a film to be admired, not embraced, and certainly not to be enjoyed for any reason other than
its expertise ... Glacially paced and somberly presented, The Hours demands that viewers be as impressed with the
production as the filmmakers are with themselves ... Whatever the reason - too gloomy, too slow, too slanted - [it] is
too highbrow and admirably dull for most moviegoers. It's the kind of film that makes critics feel smarter by
recommending it, even at the risk of damaging credibility with mainstream audiences who automatically think any
movie starring Kidman, Streep and Moore is worth viewing. The Hours will feel like days for them."
Phillip French of The Observer called it "a moving, somewhat depressing film that demands and rewards attention."
He thought "the performances are remarkable" but found the Philip Glass score to be "relentless" and
"over-amplified."
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated the film three out of five stars and commented, "It is a daring act of
extrapolation, and a real departure from most movie-making, which can handle only one universe at a time . . . The
performances that Daldry elicits . . . are all strong: tightly managed, smoothly and dashingly juxtaposed under a
plangent score. I have to confess I am agnostic about Nicole Kidman, who as Woolf murmurs her lines through an
absurd prosthetic nose. It's almost a Hollywood Disability. You've heard of Daniel Day-Lewis and My Left Foot.
This is Nicole and her Big Fake Schnoz. It doesn't look anything like the real Virginia's sharp, fastidious features . . .
Julianne Moore gives [a] superbly controlled, humane performance . . . Streep's performance is probably the most
fully realised of the three: a return to the kind of mature and demanding role on which she had a freehold in
yesterday's Hollywood . . . Part of the bracing experimental impact of the film was the absence of narrative
connection between the three women. Supplying one in the final reel undermines its formal daring, but certainly
packs an emotional punch. It makes for an elegant and poignant chamber music of the soul."

Box office
The Hours opened in New York City and Los Angeles on Christmas Day 2002 and went into limited release in the
United States and Canada two days later. It grossed $1,070,856 on eleven screens in its first two weeks of release.
On January 10, 2003, it expanded to 45 screens, and the following week it expanded to 402. On February 14 it went
into wide release, playing in 1,003 theaters in the US and Canada. With an estimated budget of $25 million, the film
eventually earned $41,675,994 in the US and Canada and $67,170,078 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box
office of $108,846,072. It was the 56th highest grossing film of 2002.
The Hours (film) 5

Soundtrack
Main article: The Hours (soundtrack)
The film's score by Philip Glass won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music and was nominated for the Academy
Award for Best Original Score and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. The soundtrack album was
nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other
Visual Media.

Additional awards and nominations

Main article: List of accolades received by The Hours

References
[1] Rolling Stone review (http:/ / www. rollingstone. com/ movies/ reviews/ the-hours-20030124)

• London Academy of Media, Film & TV, Nicole Kidman (http://www.media-courses.com/blog/

australian-actress-nicole-kidman/)

External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Hours

• Official website (http://www.miramax.com/movie/the-hours)

• The Hours (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274558/) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Hours (http://www.allmovie.com/movie/v272631) at AllMovie
• The Hours (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=hours.htm) at Box Office Mojo
• The Hours (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hours/) at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Hours (http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-hours) at Metacritic
• The Hours (http://www.vintagecarriagestrust.org/news/2001aug.pdf) - filming the railway sequences (http://
www.vintagecarriagestrust.org/news/2001aug.pdf)
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