The Hours (2002)

All Critics (197) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (155) | Rotten (37) | DVD (30)

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.

February 11, 2008 Full Review | Comment (1)

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

A puzzling and forbidding strangeness.

August 7, 2004 Full Review | Comment

Peter Rainer

New York Magazine

Top Critic

The film manages to be cinematic and transporting even though we generally spend most of our time listening to people talk to one another (and themselves).

January 17, 2003 Full Review | Comment

Joe Baltake

Sacramento Bee

Top Critic

A compelling, moving film that respects its audience and its source material.

January 17, 2003 Full Review | Comment

Eric Harrison

Houston Chronicle

Top Critic

As stunning an acting showcase as you'll find.

January 17, 2003 Comment

Tom Long

Detroit News

Top Critic

The acting, for the most part, is terrific, although the actors must struggle with the fact that they're playing characters who sometimes feel more like literary conceits than flesh-and-blood humans.

January 17, 2003 Comment

Robert Denerstein

Denver Rocky Mountain News

Top Critic

Smart, thoughtful movie for older teens and up.

December 28, 2010 Full Review | Comment

Nell Minow

Common Sense Media

Daldry's screen version is well acted but too literal, failing to convey the complexity or the lyricism of Cunningham's seminal novel.

March 26, 2009 Full Review | Comment

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

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

February 1, 2009 Full Review | Comment

Michael Dequina

TheMovieReport.com

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.

September 16, 2006 Full Review | Comment

Nick Davis

Nick's Flick Picks

A boldly realised, affecting work.

June 24, 2006 Full Review | Comment

Derek Adams

Time Out

The film's true star is its script.

December 6, 2005 Full Review | Comment

Darrin Keene

Film Threat

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

December 6, 2005 Full Review | Comment

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.

December 1, 2005 Full Review | Comment

Christopher Smith

Bangor Daily News (Maine)

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

September 30, 2005 Full Review | Comment

Scott Nash

Three Movie Buffs

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

March 22, 2005 Full Review | Comment

Jeannette Catsoulis

Las Vegas Mercury

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

December 6, 2004 Comment

Jeffrey Overstreet

Looking Closer

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

October 14, 2004 Full Review | Comment

Steve Crum

Kansas City Kansan

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

October 7, 2004 Full Review | Comments (4)

Tony Medley

tonymedley.com

• 1. Clarissa Vaughn: I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.
  – Submitted by Ted S (2 months ago)
• 1. Virginia Woolf: Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.
  – Submitted by Mati M (2 months ago)
• 1. Virginia Woolf: Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.
  – Submitted by Zbigniew Z (4 months ago)
• 1. Angelica Bell: What happens when we die?
  2. Virginia Woolf: What happens? We return to the place that we came from.
  3. Angelica Bell: I don't remember where I came from.
  4. Virginia Woolf: Nor do I.
  5. Angelica Bell: She looks smaller.
  6. Virginia Woolf: Yes, that's one of the thing that happens. You look smaller.
  7. Angelica Bell: But so peaceful.
  – Submitted by Alejandro O (5 months ago)
• 1. Laura Brown: It would be wonderful to say you regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. There it is. No one's going to forgive me. It was death. I chose life.
  – Submitted by Sara T (6 months ago)