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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.

Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for mature thematic elements, some disturbing images and brief language

Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins

Genre: Dramas

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... 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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Release:

Jun 24, 2003

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for The Hours

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Reviews
Tomatometer Critic Review Category
tomato
B-

Emanuel Levy

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.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Mar., 26 2009 11:23 AM

EmanuelLevy.Com

tomato
3/4

Michael Dequina

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Feb., 01 2009 03:53 PM

TheMovieReport.com

splat

Jonathan Rosenbaum

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.

Full Review Source: | comment 1 Comment | Feb., 11 2008 05:34 PM

Chicago Reader

tomato
4/4

Joe Lozito

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 14 2007 05:12 AM

Big Picture Big Sound

tomato
B+

Nick Davis

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.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Sep., 16 2006 08:27 PM

Nick's Flick Picks

tomato

Derek Adams

A boldly realised, affecting work.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jun., 24 2006 04:04 AM

Time Out

N/R

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | May., 26 2006 03:17 AM

Combustible Celluloid

tomato
4/5

Darrin Keene

The film's true star is its script.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Dec., 06 2005 08:00 PM

Film Threat

tomato
4/5

Rick Kisonak

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Dec., 06 2005 08:00 PM

Film Threat

tomato
A

Christopher Smith

If this movie is about how some choose not to live, it's also just as much about why others choose to go on.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Dec., 01 2005 03:57 PM

Bangor Daily News (Maine)

tomato
3/4

Scott Nash

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Sep., 30 2005 03:21 AM

Three Movie Buffs

tomato
4.5/5

Jeannette Catsoulis

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Mar., 22 2005 02:11 PM

Las Vegas Mercury

N/R

Stuart Klawans

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Mar., 03 2005 10:16 PM

Nation

tomato
A-

Jeffrey Overstreet

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Dec., 06 2004 05:12 PM

Looking Closer

splat
C+

Steve Crum

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 14 2004 07:48 PM

Kansas City Kansan

splat
0/10

Tony Medley

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

Full Review Source: | comment 4 Comments | Oct., 07 2004 07:31 PM

tonymedley.com

splat

Peter Rainer

A puzzling and forbidding strangeness.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Aug., 07 2004 09:33 AM

New York Magazine

splat
1.5/5

Jake Euker

There'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.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 05 2004 05:33 PM

F5 (Wichita, KS)

tomato
4/4

Judith Egerton

A moving adaptation of Michael Cunningham's elegant novel about one day in the lives of three women in different time periods.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jun., 23 2004 11:30 AM

Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY)

N/R

Colin Covert

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | May., 19 2004 08:16 AM

Minneapolis Star Tribune

 
 
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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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