The Hours (2002)
"A woman's whole life in a single day. Just one day. And in that day, her whole life" narrates Virginia Woolf, as portrayed by Nicole Kidman, her voice an octave lower than usual, as Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) and Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) go about their days; home alone with a 5 year-old son, about to make a birthday cake for her husband, or visiting an AIDS-stricken friend with an armful of flowers. Kidman is writing a book in 1920s England, "Mrs. Dalloway", which will be read by Moore in 1950s Los Angeles, and serve as a literary alter ego for Streep's character in 2001 New York.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the US release of The Hours, which went on to receive 9 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and win the prize for Nicole Kidman as Best Actress. It seems unlikely that a weighty book adaptation concerning lesbianism and mental illness would hit over $100 million at the worldwide box office and be showered with awards today. Indeed it seems a stretch that it would even be made in the first place, at least not with the type of mid-range budget that doesn't seem to exist anymore for grown-up dramas. A stacked cast like The Hours could hardly be assembled in a low budget endeavour, and the scope of the story, taking place over three eras would hardly be conceivable. It simply wouldn't get the green light. So we must be grateful that the stars aligned two decades ago, when audiences still demanded sophisticated drama on a grand scale.
What makes The Hours worth writing about two decades after the fact? Well, it is precisely that ensemble of extraordinary actors, each with a pivotal part to play in the story, that speaks to the power of the material. Aside from the central trio, you have Miranda Richardson, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Stephen Dillane, John C. Reilly, Ed Harris, Eileen Atkins, Margo Martindale, Jeff Daniels, Claire Danes and Linda Bassett. The fact that each of these actors is given a moment to shine, not simply in a perfunctory role but each of them with resonant impact, is no small feat. Then you have the direction from Stephen Daldry, which is superlative in its command of tone and the flow of ever-deepening dramatic tributaries, the screenplay by David Hare, which is profound and dryly humorous when it needs to be, and the wondrous score from Philip Glass, which takes a central role in the proceedings.
The effect of the three periods intertwined, echoing and complementing each other, is mesmerising, as each woman is haunted by existential unease, often flailing, distressed by the predicaments they face in their apparently perfect lives. Woolf lives comfortably in Richmond, a suburb of London, as her husband Leonard runs the printing press and she works as a respected novelist. Brown is a homemaker in a seemingly happy marriage with a young son. Streep is a literary editor and party hostess living in a long-term relationship in an affluent area of New York city. And yet...they all have to face "the hours" don't they? The hours after the party, and the hours after that...The Hours taps into the kind of guilt one might feel when melancholy appears unjustified.
It is well known that Virginia Woolf had mental health issues. These issues no doubt had a bearing on her creative output and the subject matter she chose to explore. Similarly, Kidman's own personal circumstances of divorce at the time of filming may have contributed to the emotional depth of her performance. She is barely recognisable in the role, due in no small part to the prosthetic nose she wears to aid the physical transformation. Personally, I wish she had played the role without it, as it somewhat undermines her performance, or at least the public perception of it, and is occasionally distracting. Still, the train station scene, in which confronted by her husband Woolf threatens to unceremoniously flee to London, is a show-stopper. The deep sense of anguish and defiant plea for her own autonomy is written and performed with complete clarity.
In The Hours, the characters are defined by their choices. Clarissa chooses to visit Richard, her gravely ill friend, every single day, not simply to care for him, but to desperately hold onto the person she once was. When he is gone she has to find out who she might be without him. Laura chooses to leave her family, with whom she feels utterly alone, because she knows that the alternative is even worse. Virginia, plagued by voices, despondent in the silence of the countryside, chooses "not the suffocating anaesthetic of the suburbs, but the violent jolt of the capital". These aren't easy choices. And yet by making them the women liberate themselves.
The Hours is at its heart a meditation on the bittersweet nature of the human condition. Each of the women find solace somewhere, but in Kidman and Moore's case, at a terrible cost. It speaks to the messy, often sad realities of life, from which none of us emerge unscathed. Woolf's legacy is her writing, which in the film may have saved Moore's character's life. Perhaps the saving grace of the story is that where the other women may have succumbed to tragic or solitary circumstance, Streep's character, the contemporary one, is moving forward, with her partner, knowing life "for what it is", and perhaps that is all any of us should hope for. For all the suffering and turmoil, still we want more. It's the elegance with which these ideas are conveyed that makes The Hours still worth talking about.