Update: The Hours (2002)

Film: Paramount Pictures (US)/Miramax Films (Worldwide), directed by Stephen Daldry

In a previous post/review of Michael Cunningham's The Hours, I mentioned at the bottom of the post that I had not yet seen the movie adaptation of the novel. Last night, I watched the movie, and I would like to add some more of my thoughts briefly.

Both the novel and the film were quite excellent. Both were wonderfully constructed, thoughtful and compelling. What I especially liked about the film was that, a lot of the same or similar powerful language/dialogue found in the novel was transferred to the movie. Of course, the dialogue was changed and somewhat different, but I liked that the movie still had a lot of the language that was so beautifully executed in the novel.

Often times, in movies, imagery and visuals have more important role, but in this film, the language was maintained along with the great imagery. The combination of the three stories was well sequenced in a way that the audience would not be confused.

 The film was also accompanied by a great emotional score by Phillip Glass, which realy helped the film along, while providing the right emotional notes for the unspoken and even spoken events taking place.

Overall, the film was excellent and complete with wonderful acting by the three main leads, skilled directing by Stephen Daldry and a great script. In addition to the acting by the three leads in the film (Streep, Moore, Kidman), all of the supporting actors had strong performances that really helped the main stories. In particular, I thought Ed Harris (modern-day Richard Brown), Claire Danes (Julia Vaughan), Allison Janney (Sally) and Jack Rovello (young Richard "Richie" Brown) delivered strong performances.

I highly reccomend the film, and once again, I highly reccommend the novel.

*Of course, the film is an abbreviated version of the novel and I did miss a few of the parts that were cut out of the film. (i.e. Sally's part in Clarissa's life is great minimized, less of Clarissa's history with Louis and Richard is explained)