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Movies / On DVD / The Hours
The Hours

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The Hours (2002)

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Reviews Counted: 184

Fresh: 148

Rotten:36

Average Rating: 7.4/10

Consensus: The movie may be a downer, but it packs an emotional wallop. Some fine acting on display here.

Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for mature thematic elements, some disturbing images and brief language

Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Jan 10, 2003 Wide

Box Office: $41,465,765

Synopsis: Based on the Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Michael Cunningham, THE HOURS employs Virginia Woolf's classic novel and central character, MRS. DALLOWAY, as its foundation and inspiration. Spanning... Based on the Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Michael Cunningham, THE HOURS employs Virginia Woolf's classic novel and central character, MRS. DALLOWAY, as its foundation and inspiration. Spanning three different eras, during one day, the film focuses on the parallel lives of three women joined in their depression, alienation, and search for love. Nicole Kidman, wearing a prosthetic nose, is virtually unrecognizable as the tortured writer Virginia Woolf whose ongoing battle with mental illness eventually led to her tragic suicide in 1941. The film begins with the moment of her suicide and flashes back on her life and work as she crafted her most memorable character, Clarissa Dalloway, in 1923. In 1950's California suburbia another woman, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), struggles with alienation and depression. Trapped by her clinging young son and an adoring husband whom she does not love, the desperate woman tries to prepare for her husband's birthday but cannot stop reading MRS. DALLOWAY. Finally, in modern day Manhattan, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep), a lesbian who lives with her lover (Allison Janney) and her daughter (Claire Danes), struggles to prepare a party for her ex-husband (Ed Harris) who is dying of AIDS. Director Stephen Daltry uses beautiful overlapping editing to sew the women's interwoven stories seamlessly together. At the core of this profoundly moving film is the trio of award-winning actresses who grace the screen with their bold and awe-inspiring performances. [More]

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Toni Collette

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, John C. Reilly, Eileen Atkins, Stephen Dillane

Director: Stephen Daldry

Director: Stephen Daldry
Screenwriter: David Hare
Producer: Robert Fox, Scott Rudin
Composer: Philip Glass
Studio: Paramount Pictures

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Release:

Jun 24, 2003

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for The Hours

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Daldry's screen version is well acted if too pedestrian and literal, and it doesn't capture the complexity or the lyrical qualities of Michael Cunningham's seminal novel.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
03/26/09
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

More than just Oscar bait; it's a veritable Oscar bait and tackle shop.

Full Review Source: Mr. Brown's Movies | comment Comment
02/01/09
Michael Dequina
Mr. Brown's Movies

David Hare's screen adaptation reduces Woolf and her art to a set of feminist stances and a few plot points, without reference to style or form.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment 1 Comment
02/11/08
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound | comment Comment
07/14/07
Joe Lozito
Big Picture Big Sound

The Hours totally engrosses me... It somehow deepens the [book's] themes to see the bodies, scrutinize the faces, smell the money, feel the flatness of the screen.

Full Review Source: Nick's Flick Picks | comment Comment
09/16/06
Nick Davis
Nick's Flick Picks

A boldly realised, affecting work.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Derek Adams
Time Out
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
05/26/06
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

The film's true star is its script.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/06/05
Darrin Keene
Film Threat

Life may or may not be everything it's cracked up to be. This movie most definitely is.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/06/05
Rick Kisonak
Film Threat

If this movie is about how some choose not to live, it's also just as much about why others choose to go on.

Full Review Source: Bangor Daily News (Maine) | comment Comment
12/01/05
Christopher Smith
Bangor Daily News (Maine)

Does make you think, but it doesn't entertain.

Full Review Source: Three Movie Buffs | comment Comment
09/30/05
Scott Nash
Three Movie Buffs

'In a sublime collaboration, David Hare and Stephen Daldry have created a delicate atmosphere of inchoate sadness.'

Full Review Source: Las Vegas Mercury | comment Comment
03/22/05
Jeannette Catsoulis
Las Vegas Mercury
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Nation | comment Comment
03/03/05
Stuart Klawans
Nation

It works like the best poetry, giving us room to explore ideas and issues instead of narrowing itself to simple moral lessons.

Full Review Source: Looking Closer | comment Comment
12/06/04
Jeffrey Overstreet
Looking Closer

Lost we become in story telling that emphasizes cuts and coincidences, leaving serious characterization gaps.

Full Review Source: Kansas City Kansan | comment Comment
10/14/04
Steve Crum
Kansas City Kansan

A feminist diatribe and it's true to its core as it shows men as marginalized.

Full Review Source: tonymedley.com | comment 2 Comments
10/07/04
Tony Medley
tonymedley.com

A puzzling and forbidding strangeness.

Full Review Source: New York Magazine | comment Comment
08/07/04
Peter Rainer
New York Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

There's not a breath of humor — not one little joke — in the entire two hour length -- a sign of the kind of importance that can be pretty hard to take.

Full Review Source: F5 (Wichita, KS) | comment Comment
07/05/04
Jake Euker
F5 (Wichita, KS)

A moving adaptation of Michael Cunningham's elegant novel about one day in the lives of three women in different time periods.

Full Review Source: Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) | comment Comment
06/23/04
Judith Egerton
Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY)
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
05/19/04
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
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Latest News for The Hours

May 05, 2008: Kidman tipped to play Dusty Opens in new window
Nicole Kidman has been tapped to play the bee-hived chanteuse, Dusty Springfield, in a biopic to be written by Michael Cunningham, who she worked with for The Hours. More...

June 21, 2006: Natalie Portman Aboard "Boleyn" and "Kavalier"
The universally-adored and very cute Natalie Portman seems to have a pretty high profile pair of freshly-inked contracts. On one hand, she'll be starring in a historical drama... More...

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