Other points about “The Hours”

  • Well, I just com­mented that this really is a good movie in spite of my crit­i­cism below, and as if to make my point, I find that there are lots of lit­tle odds and ends about it that seemed wor­thy of their own blog entry. How’s that for an endorsement?

    (In case it needs to be said, there’s spoiler info included, so if you haven’t seen it yet, steer clear.)

    In no par­tic­u­lar order of importance:

    1. The Nose – It took me a while to real­ize that Vir­ginia Woolf was being played by Nicole Kid­man, what with The Nose and all. In one of the spe­cial fea­tures with the DVD, the three actresses are express­ing mutual admi­ra­tion for each other on a talk show some­where, and they talk about “The Nose” — the pros­thetic that Kid­man was bound to have to wear in order to over­come her own perky lit­tle nose and approach Woolf’s seri­ous one. In one of those actorly moments that makes you go “huh?”, Moore says that wear­ing The Nose “freed up” Nicole to play the part. Freed her up from what, the ter­ri­ble bur­den of tiny-nosey-ness? And, given that Kid­man won an Oscar for this role, shouldn’t they have given a lit­tle Oscar to The Nose?
    2. Bad flour! – In the scene where Brown is mak­ing the birth­day cake with her son, they have a very tar­geted shot of the Gold Medal flour bag. I’m sure that was just a prod­uct place­ment shot that got away from them, but I think Gold Medal should ask for their money back. Because some­how they made the flour look very sin­is­ter, as if a bag of flour is a bad thing to have around when you’re depressed.
    3. What hap­pened to “Mrs. Dal­loway”? – Given that the book was prof­fered as the sym­bolic link between the three women liv­ing 80 years apart from each other, didn’t it seem funny how lit­tle info they gave you about it? In Laura Brown’s story, you don’t even know why they both­ered. If I hadn’t read in the DVD label that read­ing “Mrs. Dal­loway” is help­ing her deal with her depres­sion, I never would’ve sur­mised that. Maybe it was a mat­ter of just not being able to make a movie long enough to tell all they would’ve liked. Per­haps the book on which this movie is based does a bet­ter job? The author com­mented that read­ing “Mrs. Dal­loway” had been a break­through moment for him as a young man. It would be nice to be able to relate to that.
    4. “The ‘This Side of Glory’ Oscar goes to …” – Toni Col­lette, who played Brown’s rather plas­tic friend, Kitty. I have no idea how she made that part of the movie so inter­est­ing, espe­cially since there was a def­i­nite air of stereo­typ­ing to her char­ac­ter. But I thought her per­for­mance was a level higher than oth­ers in the movie, which is say­ing a lot.
    5. Tips for mak­ing lit­tle boys look pen­sive – I had won­dered how they got so much act­ing out of the lit­tle boy in the movie. There are all kinds of times he’s just look­ing at what’s going on as if he’s tak­ing every­thing in on many lev­els of thought. In the director’s com­ments, he says that he would tell fairy tales to the boy while they filmed him, and then splice the footage into the scenes. I thought that was interesting.
    6. The denoue­ment that wasn’t – So the big moment that turns Clarissa around is talk­ing to Brown, who owns up to what a self-absorbed, unfeel­ing creep she is. Right? As I said before, if you blink you miss it, but Clarissa has an “aha” moment when Brown says that she “chose life” (mean­ing that she aban­doned her fam­ily and new baby with­out a back­ward glance. BOY, Hol­ly­wood peo­ple suck some­times!). So what’s the point of that? That Clarissa can now choose life and go and give Sally a soul kiss (ewww!) just because Brown put life in terms of a choice you make? That seems really lame, but maybe I missed something.
    7. Other sym­bols – Besides “Mrs. Dal­loway”, sym­bol watch brings up the fol­low­ing: sui­cide (and in two of the three sto­ries, it’s seen as a nec­es­sary and lib­er­at­ing thing.); a woman-on-woman kiss as a good, bad or very bad idea; abun­dant flow­ers (which some­how also ended up look­ing sin­is­ter and inap­pro­pri­ate); sup­pos­edly cel­e­bra­tory occa­sions that end up depress­ing the snot out of you (I’m stretch­ing to include Vanessa’s visit to Vir­ginia as an occa­sion) and food as pure evil (kid­neys, bad birth­day cake, “the crab thing”). Runner-up: They had a lot of fun with the action of break­ing eggs, but they didn’t man­age to give any to Vir­ginia to com­plete the trifecta.

    Related posts:

    1. “The Hours” — Depres­sion in movies
    2. It’s hot and I smell like spaghetti sauce

    November 10th, 2006 | Grace | 6 Comments |

6 Responses and Counting...

  • her­man 11.10.2006

    Thank you for your com­ments about this film. Though I have not seen the film out found your obser­va­tions and thots interesting.

    One thing I like about a movie is when it after watch­ing it, you are left with with things to think about… whether it is stuff you agree with or not.

    Read­ing your post reminded me of when I saw the film ‘Mil­lion Dol­lar Baby.’ How I was left with things to dis­cuss after watch­ing the film with friends who I saw the film with (espe­cially because I liked the movie but hated how it ended…)

  • Grace

    That one’s a great exam­ple of a film that sticks with you. I prob­a­bly never would’ve gone to see it in the the­ater, but I couldn’t sleep on a trans-Atlantic flight and so I started watch­ing it and got caught up. It was so well done in a lot of ways, but I’m with you. I know that it’s the end­ing that is a fore­gone con­clu­sion for moviemak­ers, but I thought they would’ve made a much bet­ter movie if they had found a way out of the obvious.

  • Grace

    BTW, I re-read this entry with your com­ment in mind, and I think it must’ve sounded really strange if you hadn’t seen the movies — “Flour, sui­cide, The Nose, kid­neys? What kind of *weird* movie is this?”

  • Mimi

    I’ve also not seen the movie, but your thoughts are very inter­est­ing. I also know how a movie sticks with you — I just saw “Walk the Line” and have been con­tem­plat­ing it as well.

    Toni Colette did a fab­u­lous job in “Lit­tle Miss Sun­shine” I’m not sur­prised to hear you liked her in this.

  • Grace

    Thanks for remind­ing me about “Lit­tle Miss Sun­shine.” Some friends rec­om­mended it and I had wanted to rent it.

    We rented “Walk the Line” but haven’t watched it yet.

  • Mimi

    I don’t think it’s out, but def­i­nitely keep your eye out for it — giggle.

    Let me know what you think of “WTL”>

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