Daldry's screen version is well acted if too pedestrian and literal, and it doesn't capture the complexity or the lyrical qualities of Michael Cunningham's seminal novel.
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03/26/09
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The Hours (2002)
81
%
Tomatometer
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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.
Theatrical Release:Jan 10, 2003 Wide
Box Office: $41,465,765
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... [More]
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Toni Collette
Director: Stephen Daldry
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Reviews for The Hours
More than just Oscar bait; it's a veritable Oscar bait and tackle shop.
02/01/09
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.
02/11/08
Top CriticClick to read the article
07/14/07
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.
09/16/06
A boldly realised, affecting work.
06/24/06
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05/26/06
The film's true star is its script.
12/06/05
Life may or may not be everything it's cracked up to be. This movie most definitely is.
12/06/05
If this movie is about how some choose not to live, it's also just as much about why others choose to go on.
12/01/05
Does make you think, but it doesn't entertain.
09/30/05
'In a sublime collaboration, David Hare and Stephen Daldry have created a delicate atmosphere of inchoate sadness.'
03/22/05
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03/03/05
It works like the best poetry, giving us room to explore ideas and issues instead of narrowing itself to simple moral lessons.
12/06/04
Lost we become in story telling that emphasizes cuts and coincidences, leaving serious characterization gaps.
10/14/04
A feminist diatribe and it's true to its core as it shows men as marginalized.
10/07/04
A puzzling and forbidding strangeness.
08/07/04
Top CriticThere's not a breath of humor — not one little joke — in the entire two hour length -- a sign of the kind of importance that can be pretty hard to take.
07/05/04
A moving adaptation of Michael Cunningham's elegant novel about one day in the lives of three women in different time periods.
06/23/04
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05/19/04
Top CriticLatest News for The Hours
May 05, 2008:
Kidman tipped to play Dusty 
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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