:
Meryl Streep,
Meryl Streep,
Julianne Moore,
more...
:
Stephen Daldry,
Stephen Daldry
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: 
: Paramount
: Drama, Costume Drama/Period Piece
: 114 min.
: English, French
: English
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Three women, separated by a span of nearly 80 years, find themselves weathering similar crises, all linked by a single work of literature in this film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham. In 1923, Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is attempting to start work on her novel Mrs. Dalloway, in which she chronicles one day in the life of a troubled woman. But Virginia has demons of her own, and she struggles to overcome the depression and suicidal impulses that have followed her throughout her life, as her husband Leonard (Stephen Dillane) ineffectually tries to help. In 1951, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is a housewife living in suburban Los Angeles, where she looks after her son Richie (Jack Rovello) and husband Dan (John C. Reilly). Laura is also an avid reader who is currently making her way through Mrs. Dalloway. The farther she gets into the novel, the more Laura discovers that it reflects a dissatisfaction she feels in her own life, and she finds herself pondering the notion of leaving her life behind. Finally, in 2000, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) is a literary editor who is caring for Richard Brown (Ed Harris), a former boyfriend and noted author, who is slowly losing his fight with AIDS. Clarissa is trying to arrange a party to celebrate the fact that Richard has won a prestigious literary award, but is getting little help from Richard's ex-lover, Louis (Jeff Daniels). As she labors to help Richard through another day, he wonders if his life is worth the unending struggle. The Hours also features Toni Collette, Miranda Richardson, Allison Janney, and Claire Danes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Mrs. Dalloway
"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."
Far From Heaven
Poor Julianne Moore, stuck in the depressed 1950s again.
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| More than just time filler
by underdog
August 7, 2003 - 3:02 PM PDT
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3 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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An almost impossible book to adapt to screen and yet Stephen Daldry and co. damn near pulled it off, bringing Michael Cunningham's three-tiered story to cinematic life and giving it an emotional depth extremely hard to come by. It all starts with the acting, and with three of the finest actresses in the world anchoring each era's story, it's hard to miss -- Streep is Streep, always on, always completely there in the scene, always true to character; Moore's character, the 1950's depressive housewife, is a little harder to win us over with, but even when strained with the burden of having to wear "old person" makeup, she does a fine job bringing the character to life; and Nicole Kidman deserved her Oscar, prosthetic nose and all (I stopped noticing it after awhile), making the enigmatic, troubled and fascinating writer Virginia Woolf a three-dimensional character. The script, too, is spot-on; it's refreshing to see a film these days that requires you to think and which, most importantly, doesn't spell out everything the characters mean. It lets the actors act.
The story is pretty melancholy; it would no doubt help to watch it when in an "up" frame of mind, but with all the sadnesses and struggles comes, ultimately, redemption, an appreciation of life. Sounds cloying, but you'll feel it in a natural way, without being hit over the head with it. It's not quite a masterpiece, being a bit detached and as it tells three connected stories instead of one it doesn't have the time to fully develop some of its threads beyond ideas. But what is here is pretty masterful. See it with hankies.
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.80)
244 Votes
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