Blurb: Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer and Pen/Faulkner prizes, The Hours is a daring and deeply affecting novel inspired by the life and work of Virginia Woolf. A passionate, profound and haunting story of love and inheritance, hope and despair.
Exiled in Richmond in the 1920s, taken from her beloved Bloomsbury and lovingly watched over by her husband Leonard, Virginia Woolf struggles to tame her rebellious mind and make a start on her new novel. In the brooding heat of 1940s Los Angeles, a young wife and mother yearns to escape the claustrophobia of suburban domesticity and read her precious copy of Mrs Dalloway. And in New York in the 1990s, Clarissa Vaughan steps out of her smart Greenwich Village apartment and goes shopping for flowers for the party she is giving in honour of her life-long friend Richard, an award-winning poet whose mind and body are being ravaged by AIDS.
The Hours was one of those instances where you see the film and then find out there was a book and feel a bit embarrassed about not knowing. I finally read the book at university as I chose it, and the film, as the subject of an essay I was doing on whether a book or film about a writer can be considered an adaptation. You'll be relieved to hear that I'm not about to regurgitate the brilliance that was my essay muahaha... but I decided that as I came to the film first, it made sense to do my review on the film at the same time as the book.
The Hours by Michael Cunningham is not a difficult read but that doesn't mean it lacks substance. People often say that it's suicidal to write a book that jumps between time periods and different characters but if it's done well, I personally often really enjoy the effect. There's something satisfying about seeing different time periods intertwine, especially as 'the past' is something generally considered intangible.
Cunningham picked Virginia Woolf as a focus for his book but how does he bring her to life when all his readers are living in a completely different world? The answer is, as you would expect, manifold but the fundamental device I felt was his relating her to situations, modern or otherwise, that are familiar. For instance: relationships:- parent, child, friends, sisters, partners. emotions:- love, embarrassment, joy, loss, desperation. situations:- birthdays, dinners, celebrations, home life.
All the characters are beautifully crafted. You completely believe and fall for Leonard Woolf, for instance. With the main three characters, however, Cunningham cleverly creates ambivalence about how you feel about them. They're not perfect, which is what makes them so real, and so you spend a lot of time jumping between frustration and empathy. It's a great book and will take you no time to read so worth doing!
As I watched it before I read it, I was bound to enjoy the film more so the ratings I've given are a result of that!
7.5/10
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The film, as a completely different medium, obviously cannot use the subtlety of writing to convey these things, as Cunningham does so well. Everything is far more explicit in film but you couldn't find three more brilliant actresses to bring this book to life without making it a crude adaptation (of the book or of Virginia Woolf herself). It's not hard to see why Nicole Kidman got herself an Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf.
As with so many films, there are slight changes made from the original text but you would hardly notice. There is always that factor that you don't get in books where you see Meryl Streep come on screen and you go 'Hi Meryl' (or is that just me...?). Nicole Kidman's fake nose, though, however bizarre a concept, saves her from that problem, regardless of acting ability, and the result is that you really feel you're watching Virginia Woolf.
Aside from the story itself, what I love about the film is its whole feel. Philip Glass provides a beautiful score, the lighting is soft, the acting is spot on and the whole movie feels very intimate. The actors, of course, help this and even a young Claire Danes manages to bring something within her minimal screen time.
This is one of my all-time favourite films. It's not a cheery one... so maybe not one for a sunny afternoon... but it's soooo worth watching.
9/10
Introducing... Virginia Woolf
Monk's House
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