WASTED
HOURS
Film Review of "The Hours", by Hariette Surovell
Who knew a movie
could make you want to jump in a river? The Mississippi, The Thames...
any river will do!
"The Hours",
based on Michael Cunningham's novel of the same title, is a fictional
imagining of tormented suicidal female literary genius Virginia Woolf
(Nicole Kidman) completing the writing of "Mrs. Dalloway"
before drowning herself; Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) as a repressed1950's
housewife who is influenced by reading Woolf's masterpiece; and Clarissa
Vaughn (Meryl Streep), a contemporary Lesbian editor who is nicknamed
"Clarissa Dalloway" by her now-also-gay ex-lover, Richard
(Ed Harris), the recipient of a prestigious poetry award who is dying
of AIDS. Are we confused yet? This reviewer still is, many hundreds
of hours after viewing all these weary, dreary drones drowning their
sorrows with sorrow. Why has such a muddy puddle of phony tears garnered
so many critical cries of passion? Sobsisters unite!
Even the vivid,
colorful cameo by Miranda Richardson as Woolf's sister, Bohemian artist
extraordinaire Vanessa Bell is depressing, since it reminds us that
Richardson, who is much more naturally talented than Streep, has been
reduced to playing lowly bit parts since her explosive debut in Mike
Newell's 1985 classic "Dance With a Stranger". Unlike Richardson,
Stagey Streep just can't stop over-acting--either she is discreetly
wiping wet eyes or her voice subtlely cracks in despair or...She never
lets her fellow Thespians breathe, as she uses up all the oxygen in
a room. Streep is not a team player, damnit, and shouldn't a gracious
actress at least share the celluloid space? Julianne Moore, reprising
her role as a repressed 1950's housewife in the also overrated "Far
from Heaven", but here with a dowdier wardrobe, is so afflectless
it makes one nostalgic for her sensitive yet amoral porn star, Amber
Waves, in "Boogie Nights". Kidman is instantly forgettable,
except for her now notorious witchlike prosthetic beak. Hopefully Gwyneth
Paltrow,
playing tormented suicidal female literary genius Sylvia Plath in the
upcoming biopic will make her character rise through the air like "Lady
Lazarus".