The Hours
Academy Award × 1·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
What critics thought
The Hours earned broadly favorable notices on release, with the three central performances drawing near-universal admiration, but critics diverged sharply on almost everything else: whether the interlocking structure was formally bold or simply agenda-driven, whether Philip Glass's score was inspired connective tissue or tuneless self-importance, and whether the film's relentless bleakness made it a work to be admired or merely endured.
“Watching The Hours, one finds oneself focusing excessively on the unfortunate prosthetic nose Kidman affects in order to look more like the novelist. And wondering why the screenwriter, David Hare, and the director, Stephen Daldry, turn Woolf, a woman of incisive mind, into a hapless ditherer.”
Richard Schickel·Time
“it is the most finely crafted film of the past year that I never want to sit through again. The performances are flawless, the screenplay is intelligently crafted, and the overall mood is relentlessly bleak. It is a film to be admired, not embraced, and certainly not to be enjoyed for any reason other than its expertise.”
St. Petersburg Times
“Clear-eyed and austerely balanced would be a more accurate description, along with magnificently written and acted. Mr. Glass's surging minimalist score, with its air of cosmic abstraction, serves as ideal connective tissue for a film that breaks down temporal barriers.”
Stephen Holden·The New York Times
“Supplying one in the final reel undermines its formal daring, but certainly packs an emotional punch. It makes for an elegant and poignant chamber music of the soul.”
Peter Bradshaw·The Guardian
“Kidman's acting is superlative, full of passion and feeling ... Moore is wrenching in her scenes with Laura's son (Jack Rovello, an exceptional child actor). And Streep is a miracle worker, building a character in the space between words and worlds. These three unimprovable actresses make The Hours a thing of beauty.”
Peter Travers·Rolling Stone
Genres
Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorStephen Daldry
StarringNicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, Stephen Dillane, Jack Rovello
ComposerPhilip Glass
The Hours
Academy Award × 1·National Film Registry
The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.
What critics thought
The Hours earned broadly favorable notices on release, with the three central performances drawing near-universal admiration, but critics diverged sharply on almost everything else: whether the interlocking structure was formally bold or simply agenda-driven, whether Philip Glass's score was inspired connective tissue or tuneless self-importance, and whether the film's relentless bleakness made it a work to be admired or merely endured.
“Watching The Hours, one finds oneself focusing excessively on the unfortunate prosthetic nose Kidman affects in order to look more like the novelist. And wondering why the screenwriter, David Hare, and the director, Stephen Daldry, turn Woolf, a woman of incisive mind, into a hapless ditherer.”
Richard Schickel·Time
“it is the most finely crafted film of the past year that I never want to sit through again. The performances are flawless, the screenplay is intelligently crafted, and the overall mood is relentlessly bleak. It is a film to be admired, not embraced, and certainly not to be enjoyed for any reason other than its expertise.”
St. Petersburg Times
“Clear-eyed and austerely balanced would be a more accurate description, along with magnificently written and acted. Mr. Glass's surging minimalist score, with its air of cosmic abstraction, serves as ideal connective tissue for a film that breaks down temporal barriers.”
Stephen Holden·The New York Times
“Supplying one in the final reel undermines its formal daring, but certainly packs an emotional punch. It makes for an elegant and poignant chamber music of the soul.”
Peter Bradshaw·The Guardian
“Kidman's acting is superlative, full of passion and feeling ... Moore is wrenching in her scenes with Laura's son (Jack Rovello, an exceptional child actor). And Streep is a miracle worker, building a character in the space between words and worlds. These three unimprovable actresses make The Hours a thing of beauty.”
Peter Travers·Rolling Stone
Genres
Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorStephen Daldry
StarringNicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, Stephen Dillane, Jack Rovello
ComposerPhilip Glass
Rent/Purchase