The hours

Based on the book with the same title by Michael Cunningham and directed by Stephel Daldry, we follow three women in three different time periods but all connected together with Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. We have Viriginia Woolf herself (Nicole Kidman), Laura Brown in her unhappy mariage in the 1950s and Clarissa Vaughan in the late 1990s. Clarissa’s day closely ressembles that of Mrs. Dalloway in the book.

It is a very depressing film in some aspects. Several characters commit suicide. It is very, maybe a bit too, dramatic sometimes, maybe a bit to heavy handed. The movie is from 2002, so that may explain some of it, but in the year of 2026 it has somewhat of an “yes, we know that woman struggle with that in our society since forever, it’s only the very tip of a very huge iceberg, can we go a bit deeper maybe? We had so many stories about this already and it’s still a superficial approach, maybe we can do something more for once?” feeling. It got an “I’m so preoccuped to be deep that I forgot to be deep” impression. Feminism 101 writen by white american man kind of impression (I may be completly wrong on this). The music is extremely heavy, almost oppressiv, so maybe it is at fault for this. The movie seems to be well aware of how great it wants to be.

It is a good movie though. It is well acted. The three main actresses do an impressive job and carry the movie. The narration with the three intervowen timelines is well done and I enjoyed the narration, the visuals and the overall direction. But it really comes down on you as a heavy hammer. Also I didn’t get why every woman had to be secretly lesbian somehow.

Also, it really needed another soundtrack.