|
The Hours (18-Dec-2002)
Director: Stephen Daldry Keywords: Drama
REVIEWS Review by Lester Adams (posted on 16-Apr-2006) I don't usually do movie criticism, but
it has been a long time since I saw a movie that left me with such a
sense of torpid despondency and hopelessness as THE HOURS. My friend
Michael insisted that I go see this "wonderfully crafted little gem of
a movie called THE HOURS that [had] so much to say about the 'human
condition'." That should have been my tip off right there. Why is it
that a certain strain of intellectual men (and most women) equate
depression (as well as other negative emotions such as sadness and
grief) with "deep thought" while happiness and uplifting themes (such
as the feeling of ecstatic joy one gets from watching the bad guy get
what's coming to him in the form of an exploding hand grenade) are
equated with air headed frivolity and vulgar pedestrian taste? Their
idea of a perfect intellectual conversation seems to be sitting around
in a coffee house somewhere in the West Village or on Haight Street
gazing down into a cup of steaming Kenyan java while complaining to one
another about how life has f*$#ed them over; and what beautiful human
beings they once were before an unfeeling world crushed them down.
Anyway, what follows was my response to an e-mail from Michael asking
me how I liked the movie. Well Michael, thanks to your prodding, I went
to see THE HOURS, staring the lovely and talented Nicole Kidman, and
co-starring Meryl Streep; and Julianne Moore. After leaving the theater
I filled my coat pockets with heavy rocks and began walking zombie like
toward the river so despondent was I at the prospect of having to face
all of those joyless hours which the movie made me feel certain lay
ahead of me in life. Only the quick thinking and fast talking of a
kindly stranger saved me from a watery grave. The movie was beautifully
photographed in hushed, muted, sepia tones to accentuate and reflect
the somber, gloomy, disconsolate and hopeless mood of its main
characters. (Wasn't it H.D. Thoreau who once said that behind their
facades of genial conviviality most women lead lives of quiet
desperation in a huddled mass yearning to breathe free?) The acting was
exceptionally good and, at least to me, I found the actresses to be
compelling in their portrayals of women overcome with, at best,
unremitting ennui; and at worst, soul numbing despair. The movie had
all the cheer of a cancer ward on a bleak and rainy New England
afternoon in late December. Notwithstanding all of the movie's many
virtues (and there ARE many), I disliked it for the way it made me
feel; and am sorry I went to see it. I should have stayed home and
played a nice little uplifting game of Freecell on my computer. For
some reason I don't like to be depressed or saddened by things, and
very much like to stay OUT of touch with those particular emotions as
much as possible. Years of study and experience have led me to conclude
that there is every bit as much to be said for the repression of
unpleasant emotions as there is to be said for, say, avoiding contact
with hot stove tops. I realize how shallow this is, Michael, but I just
can't see DELIBERATELY going to view something that is going to make
you feel bad. But that's just one man's opinion; and BEING a man, I
recognize that there are certain things that I am simply incapable of
understanding. But I DO understand this: On a chick flick scale of one
to ten, this movie hits a perfect ten. From a woman's perspective it
has everything: unrequited love, love that has died, crying, death,
loss, homosexuality, poetry, pernicious diseases (both mental and
physical), infidelity and abandonment, manipulation of others,
Edwardian settings, turn of the century costumes, the emptiness of life
for women in the pre-liberation 1950's, victimized and exploited women,
ineffectual and overcompensating men, hand wringing, educated people in
touch with their feelings (and those feelings, without exception, all
relating to either loss or depression {or both}), sensitive and
intelligent women sacrificing their lives for incognizant men who are,
for the most part, oblivious of their needs; or, on the flip side, the
hollowness of life for over-achieving career women of the 1990's, and
on and on and on. You can bet your boots, Michael, that the next movie
I go see is going to have plenty of jet fighters in it as well as
machine guns, explosions, hand grenades, chain saws, cyborgs from the
future, a plot that can be written on the back of a matchbook cover;
and plenty of long legged big titted women! I know, I know. You don't
even have to say it. I'm a knuckle dragging philistine who should be
horse-whipped out of town.
Locate a copy of this film here.
Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile
Copyright ©2008 Soylent Communications
|
