At the end of Stephen Daldry’s film “The Hours” the movie theater was silent. Not even the rustle of collecting purses or crumpling popcorn bags interrupted the audience’s standstill.
“The Hours” tells the story of three women and their struggle with the limitations of sanity, society and love. Adapted by David Hare from Michael Cunningham’s novel of the same name it is notable that three men–Daldry, Hare and Cunningham– are credited with the movie’s creation.
The plot, carried by the scenery, music and actors themselves, is beyond the clichéd woe of a woman trapped in the role of a caregiver. The emotion is beautifully portrayed through the dialogue and music and is intimately feminine. “The Hours” recognizes the silent battle women fight with their biological design to be selfless.
Starring Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf, the opening scene depicts the author’s final attempt at suicide. The early 1920s of Woolf’s world bleeds into the 1950s as Laura Brown, played by Julianne Moore, is introduced as a depressed, pregnant housewife. Laura’s unhappiness is detained by Woolf’s book “Mrs. Dalloway.”
The “Mrs. Dalloway” tells of a wealthy hostess and the paralleled life of a WWI veteran. Meanwhile, the tale of “Mrs. Dalloway” is transposed onto a modern New York setting through the life of Clarissa Vaughan, played by Meryl Streep. Clarissa is a publishing editor in the midst of planning a party for poet, AIDS victim Richard Brown.
The three women are engrossed by the fact that they are living for someone other than themselves. Due to Woolf’s mental condition, her husband commits to the slow-paced life of Richmond, England. The writer is suffocated by the humdrum countryside and longs for London society. Laura’s husband and children innocently harnessed her to a suburban life she isn’t capable of surviving. In Clarissa’s case, her devotion to Richard increasingly kept her from facing her own life.
The film delicately braids the trinity of madness invading these women’s lives. The quality of acting and its rhythm with the flow of one scene to next is magnified by Philip Glass’ compositions. He intentionally avoids giving each time period its own music.
“I made a key decision early on that each musical cue would bridge all three stories,” Glass says on the movie’s Web site. “After all, they really aren’t separate stories at all–each segment is really telling a part of the same story–I was looking for the same sort of coherence in the music, for it to be a thread that weaves its way through all three periods of time, a way to bind them into one.”
Meryl Streep’s and Julianne Moore’s talent is still impressive even if it is expected. Yet Nicole Kidman’s portrayal of Woolf is profound. The least artistically celebrated of the three actresses, she carries the film with a constant understanding of her character’s predicament.
“The Hours” is haunting. Even when the audience leaves the theater, the complexity and consequences of a single day spent in the lives of these three women’s lives stays with them.