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Reviewer: Pete Luisi-Mills
Contrary to what one might think, the most annoying films are not the worst ones, made by incompetent hacks with zero budgets, bargain-basement sets and fourth-rate actors. No, the most annoying films are the "might-have-been" films: films that are fairly dripping with promise, loaded with talent, with a speckless literary pedigree. Of such films much has been given, and much is indeed required. The Hours is filled with incredible talent: Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, John C Reilly, Ed Harris. Due to a weak screenplay and starry-eyed direction, almost all of them are operating far below their ability, and the effect is maddening. The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry (who also directed 2000's Billy Elliot), is about three women from three different eras: Virginia Woolf, a writer in 1920's England; Laura Brown, a depressed housewife in 1950's California; and Clarissa Vaughan, an editor living in modern-day New York. The women are connected by Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway. We see Virginia writing it, Laura reading it, and Clarissa more or less living it, the film shifting back and forth between the stories in a perfunctory fashion. There are a few other things the women share in common: sexual confusion, suicidal tendencies, bland partners that don't understand them, and, judging from the way the three actresses are lit, a severe iron deficiency. To quickly sum up the unwieldy plot: Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is struggling to write her new novel Mrs. Dalloway. Her husband has moved them to a quiet town far from London because he fears (rightfully) for her mental health. She is frustrated by her dull surroundings and often contemplates suicide. Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) quietly raises her son and keeps her suburban home, while suffocating in a passionless marriage. She yearns for release, considering both suicide and abandoning her family. She is reading Mrs. Dalloway. Finally, we have Clarissa Vaughan, a woman whose life bears an eerie resemblence to the literary Mrs. Dalloway, struggling to care for her ex-lover and friend Richard (Ed Harris), a poet dying of AIDS. This is the barest outline of the film. So what is The Hours about, exactly? Well, depending on viewer, The Hours is either: A) a very dull film about a suicidal, repressed lesbian who is inspired by a book about a crazy lesbian written by a crazy repressed lesbian who commits suicide; B) a savage indictment of the puritanical sexual mores and gender roles of late Victorian England and 1950's America; C) a thoughtful examination of emotional desperation and psychic disintegration, portrayed through the lives of three women, or D) a noble but botched attempt to film a complex literary conceit. It would be glib and unfair to say that A is correct, and B is an obvious point that was probably not the main intention of the filmmaker. I think Daldry was going for C and ended up with D, mainly because he's simply not ready for something this complex. He bit off more than he could chew. Daldry seems in awe of his source material, which is one of the worst mistakes a filmmaker can make. Be it Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Tolkien, or Woolf, a filmmaker needs to bring his material down from its cultural pedestal while still showing it due respect. His reverence for both Woolf and Michael Cunningham's novel are the film's undoing. Considering the emotional power of its themes (madness, suicide, child abandonment, failing marriages, homosexuality), The Hours is curiously uninvolving. Daldry keeps his audience at a chilly remove. Kidman is saddled with cumbersome dialogue, delivered with a leaden certainty that sinks most of her scenes — she seems all too aware of the icon she's portraying, afraid to shake the dust off her character. Her performance reminded me of those hushed, reverential treatments of Great Men And Women that Hollywood used to produce in the old days. Moore's performance is a little trickier. Yes, she's supposed to be a desperate woman who's rotting slowly from the inside, a woman who must do something radical or die by inches in the wasteland of suburbia. Yes, she is trapped in a culture where she has been taught not to speak of that desperation. As I watched her performance, however, I searched in vain for other emotions beneath the surface. What exactly is she desperate for, anyway? We know she's inspired by the book Mrs. Dalloway to consider taking her own life (Mrs. Dalloway, incidentally, comes off in this movie not so much as a profound work of literature as a high-brow version of Ozzy Osbourne's "Suicide Solution"). We know what she doesn't want, but we're never given the obverse. Is she just an empty shell? Moore struggles gamely to infuse her character with wordless, passionate longing, but there's simply far too many shots of her gazing blankly into space. Most of her scenes are with her son, and though they are well-constructed they make little narrative sense until the final scenes of the film when the Big Secret is revealed (you'll probably figure it out earlier). These revelations explain a lot about a certain supporting character, but tell us squat about Laura Brown. Streep nearly redeems the film with her nuanced portrayal of Clarissa. Though she has some big, emotional scenes, what I liked best were her quiet moments. Watch her reactions to Richard, or to her lover (played by The West Wing's Allison Janney), and you will see an actress in complete control of her craft. Clarissa is fighting hard to keep herself, Richard and her world from falling apart, and she is in constant danger of melting down before our very eyes. Some of the supporting cast is allowed to shine. Ed Harris is powerful as the AIDS-ravaged poet, Toni Collette brings some welcome life to the dreary proceedings as a brittle homemaker, and Miranda Richardson is excellent as Woolf's sister. John C. Reilly, however, is criminally under-utilized in a thankless role as Laura's gormless husband, and Claire Danes is wasted in a thoughtless cameo. Most troubling of all is the short shrift given to the characters who suffer as a result of the main characters' decisions. Woolf's husband is painted as domineering and insensitive to her desire to return to London, yet one could argue that he has a right to be concerned, considering she has twice attempted suicide. No thought whatsoever is given to Laura's husband. Admittedly, the tragic effect of Laura's actions on her son is readily apparent, but when Laura is confronted with the fact near the end of the film, her response is supremely unsatisfactory. She gives no explanation other than that she really, really had to abandon her family. In other words, "sorry if I hurt them, but it's not like I had a choice". Excuse me? This is a typical attitude seen in many films: self-actualization and self-preservation are all-important and take precedence over any prior promises or obligations. The Hours assumes we will not only sympathize with the plight of its characters, but also excuse their dangerous and irresponsible behavior. The characters (and the Laura Brown character in particular) do have choices other than suicide and family abandonment. I realize that the characters' decisions were cemented in the original novel, but that Daldry doesn't even hint at other possible directions or options for his characters belies a basically selfish worldview. Films with complex structures, big themes and large casts can still manage to be light on their feet in the right hands (the films of Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson come to mind). Daldry is simply not of that caliber, and The Hours ends up weighing a ton. Postscript... I have heard it suggested that perhaps, because I am not a woman, I might have missed the impact of the film. To say this is to give a pass to a filmmaker who has not done his job. While it is certainly true that a viewer with more in common with the characters in a film will find it easier to empathize, it is the filmmaker's job to create characters that any open viewer can identify with, regardless of gender, race, culture, or whatever. It is my job to be open to the characters. We have all seen many films about people whose life experience is completely alien to us, and yet have been profoundly moved; for myself, I think of the African-American characters in Do the Right Thing, the Chinese-American women in The Joy Luck Club, the drug abusers in Requiem for a Dream, the teenagers in Ghost World, or porn-industry workers in Boogie Nights. A good filmmaker brings out the humanity in his characters and helps you to care for them, even love them, regardless of anything you may have in common. For a grown-up and honest film that deals with themes of desperation, broken relationships, difficult choices, repressed sexuality, and the cultural deadness of suburbia, try 1999's American Beauty. Also recommended is this year's Far From Heaven, another film about a woman trapped in a rigidly-defined gender role who later tries to rebel against her society and is made to suffer the consequences. Both films contain real characters one can empathize with.
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