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Movies / On DVD / The Hours
The Hours

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The Hours (2002)

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Reviews Counted:185

Fresh:149

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.

Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins

Genre: Dramas

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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Reviews for The Hours

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121 - 140 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

This movie is in love with female victimization.

Full Review Source: TIME Magazine | comment Comment
01/13/03
Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
TIME Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's intelligently made and literary in the best sense of the word.

Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | comment Comment
01/13/03
Jim Lane
Jim Lane
Sacramento News & Review

With the prospect of films like Kangaroo Jack about to burst across America’s winter movie screens it's a pleasure to have a film like The Hours as an alternative.

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
01/13/03
Robin Clifford
Robin Clifford
Reeling Reviews
N/R

Deft editing and a toney cast can't disguise this flashy exercise in self-indulgence.

Full Review Source: Denton Record Chronicle (TX) | comment Comment
01/12/03
Boo Allen
Boo Allen
Denton Record Chronicle (TX)

An astonishing piece of work and an actors' dream, about lives that feel real and characters that are anything but superficial in their wants.

Full Review Source: DustinPutman.com | comment Comment
01/11/03
Dustin Putman
Dustin Putman
DustinPutman.com

A well-made and thought-provoking examination of depression, regret and acceptance, or not, of one's life and being.

Full Review Source: Screen It! | comment Comment
01/10/03
Jim Judy
Jim Judy
Screen It!

It's a collection of elusive moments and connections, a musing on nothing less than the meaning of life itself.

Full Review Source: Seattle Times | comment Comment
01/10/03
Moira MacDonald
Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times

You don't just love the movie for its structure but for the haunted people in it, making each other miserable, but forcing each other to face who they are.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
01/10/03
Desson Thomson
Desson Thomson
Washington Post

It would be all too precious to watch except for the brilliant performances, which make it too wonderful not to watch.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
01/10/03
Stephen Hunter
Stephen Hunter
Washington Post

Far from a bad film, and at least two of its central trio of performances provide moments of disarming grace, but don't be surprised if a whiff of self-congratulation emanates from the screen.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
01/10/03
Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Boston Globe

The hours pass by slowly when a movie has this much heaviness to it, but the cast make it an emotional train wreck worth watching.

Full Review Source: TheMovieChicks.com | comment Comment
01/10/03
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
TheMovieChicks.com

A big-budget/all-star movie as unblinkingly pure as The Hours is a distinct rarity, and an event.

Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | comment Comment
01/09/03
William Arnold
William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

It never fails to engage us.

Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
01/09/03
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

So achingly earnest in its desire to do well by its subjects that it struggles to keep them on the very pedestal they wish to climb down from.

Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | comment Comment
01/09/03
MaryAnn Johanson
MaryAnn Johanson
Flick Filosopher

Kidman's acting is superlative, full of passion and feeling.

Full Review Source: Rolling Stone | comment Comment
01/09/03
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Rolling Stone

just as we’re settling in, beginning to understand how the gentle rocking motion of the script is describing some greater arc, here comes the Nicole Kidman again, acting the hell out of Virginia Woolf, dragging that mad hoot of a honker around like it’s

Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | comment Comment
01/09/03
Philip Martin
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

A viewer can forget about Woolf, not care a fig about Cunningham, and just bathe -- soak, more like -- in the voluptuous sadnesses of Mss. Woolf, Brown, and Vaughan, delineated with such refinement by Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
01/09/03
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

Ultimately, "The Hours" just beats us over the head one too many times with its depressing message.

Full Review Source: Katrillion.com | comment Comment
01/08/03
John Oliver
John Oliver
Katrillion.com

A potent illustration of the profound impact words and ideas can have, even across decades and disparate milieux.

Full Review Source: eye WEEKLY | comment Comment
01/06/03
Catharine Tunnacliffe
Catharine Tunnacliffe
eye WEEKLY

A quietly and methodically devastating masterwork.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Examiner | comment Comment
01/06/03
Joe Leydon
Joe Leydon
San Francisco Examiner
 
 
121 - 140 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >> >|
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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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