Poignant and richly imagined, David Hare's screen adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel spans nearly eighty years, connecting the lives of three women united by their desperation to conceal the fact that emotionally speaking, they are falling apart.
Living in Richmond, England, in 1923, Virginia Woolf (Kidman) is an aspiring writer smothered by the stillness of her quiet country life. Tormented by a deep and bitter depression, her unpredictable temperament forces a wall of silence between herself and her husband. Punctuated by Philip Glass's elegant piano score, the tension between the two of them is acutely felt, marking a stark contast to the scenes in which their doubtless love for one another appears as if it will transcend even Virginia's pain. The narrative frames a few precious hours on the day she begins to write her first novel, Mrs Dalloway; a lifetime to the vulnerable Laura Brown (Moore), who in 1951 begins to read Woolf's literary efforts in an attempt to escape the tedium of her own suburban Los Angeles lifestyle.
Where Woolf is trapped against her will, Laura Brown is a victim of her own volition. Having adapted the role of housewife and mother after her husband returns from the Second World War, she finds she cannot escape her own misery for even a few hours. Dropping her son Richie off en-route she checks into a hotel close to her home, demanding that she not be disturbed as she makes a decision which will change her life and consequently the course of the film.
Clarissa Vaughan (Streep) is a modern-day Mrs Dalloway, a nickname coincidentally bestowed upon her by her lifelong friend and degenerate AIDS sufferer, Richard, a man with whom she believes herself to be in love, despite the existence of a ten-year relationship between herself and her lesbian lover, Sally. The snapshot of a day in Clarissa's life finds her preparing to host a party in celebration of Richard's lifetime achievement award for his career as a writer. The painted smile on her face unconvincingly masks a consuming fear that after years of doting on Richard, finally she is falling apart. As the film beigns to digress, Richard's suicide brings the action sharply back into focus, introducing and attempting to clarify the concepts of love, destiny and free will.
The constant traverse between the settings is at first a little confusing, but as the stories unfold there is much to be gained from following the progression of hours between the three women simultaneously. The parellels between all three situations are striking, marked not only by the ever-present issues of freedom and choice, but also by the pointed use of yellow roses at some juncture in each of the three linked narratives.
Compelling enough to keep you in your seat and perhaps even to watch again at home, I found The Hours to be an emotional and evocative adaptation of a novel which I now fully intend to read. The convincing performances of all three female leads refute any argument that certain actors are only suited to playing certain typecast roles as the trio demonstrate a versatility of skill which compensates for the slightly unoriginal concept of the film itself. |
