Oh, man, what a fantastic movie is. This was actually my second viewing of The Hours. I first watched it back in 2010 and remembered being extremely surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I would not have given this movie a chance back when it came out in 2002, but my interests in films have changed dramatically since then. Now that’s not to say I still can’t enjoy a blockbuster (I actually watched Captain America: Civil War earlier in the same day and loved it), but I am much more into the human aspect of independent dramas like The Hours than I am about action movies or comedies. This movie deals with depression, a topic that I am, unfortunately, very familiar with. And it does it from three different time periods with three different stories that are loosely at times (and not so loosely) during others. This movie knotted Nicole Kidman (Cold Mountain, Rabbit Hole) with, surprisingly, just her third nomination to date (as of May 2016) and her first and only win. With a prosthetic nose, she was virtually unrecognizable as Virginia Woolf. But it wasn’t her physical characteristics that stood out. It was how she immersed herself in the role of a woman who you would think had it all but was so mentally troubled that she could not find any happiness in her life. An accomplished actress, this is the performance of her career in a movie that shouldn’t be missed by anybody who views life with a cup half empty sort of mentality.
Continue reading The Hours (2002)
Category Archives: Stephen Daldry
The Reader (2008)
There are interesting comparisons between Stephen Daldry’s (The Hours, Billy Elliot) 2008 film, The Reader, and Lone Scherfig’s 2009 film, An Education. Both movies revolve centrally around the emotions a young person feels when they capture the allure of a much older member of the opposite sex whom they find to be sexually attractive. In An Education, it is Peter Sarsgaard’s character, David, who is wooing a young and impressionable Jenny (Carey Mulligan), influencing her so much that she is willing to sacrifice her future for him. In The Reader, it is 36-year-old streetcar conductor Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet – Titanic, Revolutionary Road) taking a liking to 16-year-old Michael Berg (David Kross in his debut performance). I would be interested in learning if An Education was filmed before or after Scherfig had watched The Reader.