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The Hours Is From Venus…
I first saw The Hours more than a month ago. I had some strong feelings about what the movie
was and what the movie was not.
But I knew that I had to see the movie at least one
more time before I would be ready to write about it.
I saw it again yesterday.
And it was a very different experience.
For a month, I’ve simplified the experience of this film… story
structure was off… there wasn’t enough for Meryl Streep
and Julianne Moore to do… the supporting characters
were more interesting than the leads… etc. etc. etc.
But somehow, after taking so long to see the film again, I
really relaxed into the experience the second time around. Part of it was the lack of pressure, now that
I have seen all the films there are to see and a quiet week
is just around the corner.
But a bigger part of the change, I think, was that
I knew what was coming. And in The Hours, that makes a huge difference. There is a third act twist that, for me, is
key to the entire experience of this film.
And it changed how I viewed the first 90 minutes or
so… a lot.
While I was relaxing, I lingered more freely in the performances
of Streep and Ed Harris and Julianne Moore. Kidman’s turn as Virginia Woolf is perhaps
the most underappreciated great turn this year, with far too
many critics and civilians leading with comments about her
putty nose. This performance is much, much more than that.
As I was watching this time
around, it occurred to me that I was watching a “women’s movie”
in the most literal of ways. Besides being about women, it is a film of
moments… moments that do not always lead to an easily defined
climax. If you were to take each of these moments as
little stories in their own right, this movie has a great
deal to offer. And I started to think, this is what the film
is about…. it’s about living at a pace that can only make
sense to you, your own personal emotional music, your own
indescribable pain, your own odd form of expression.
Surviving the hours between key events…. living… it’s
not always easy… it’s harder for the emotionally open, no
matter how strong the façade.
And then it hit me…. the theme of the year is this small step
of survival. People
are making movies about making the small steps, instead of
the classic, showy, big Hollywood leaps.
Adaptation, Far From Heaven and About Schmidt
are all baby-step movies. So are 8 Mile, Max, Narc, Roger Dodger
and Secretary. They
are all about real people trying to adapt, taking small steps
in the right direction. No
epiphanies, not revelations… reality… the way we really evolve
in life… usually. That’s not to say that the bigger emotional
sweep of Antwone Fisher and The Pianist aren’t
every bit as valid. It
is the emotional size of these two films that keeps me believing
so strongly in their Oscar chances. Even Gangs of New York, epic that it
is, is really a small step movie.
Its bookends are the rise and fall of one powerful
man and his personal philosophy of what America is and what
it should be.
In The Hours, the small steps of these three women are
reflective of one another, despite leagues of time between
each story. How do we fill the hours of our lives? Do we run, so we lie, do we die? Each woman has to take that journey themselves.
And so do the people in their lives.
Is indulging our individual truths a form of excessive narcissism?
Or do the people who love us, love us in a way that
is as important to them as their own journeys?
Meryl Streep is breathtaking. Seeing this again, reflected in the glory of
Adaptation, reminded me of what a treasure this actress
is to the dramatic form.
Her skin breathes truth.
Her hair caresses the air. Her eyes speak louder than any screenplay’s
words.
Julianne Moore also walks this dramatic tightrope
with seeming effortlessness.
But there is an odd reflection of Far From Heaven
in this role. She
is so reactive here. Her best scene comes when she is given a great
acting backboard… a remarkable turn by Toni Collette. It is odd, as Collette seems to be channeling
a variation on Moore’s Far From Heaven character, but
one who is, when she wants to be, wide awake.
As great as the trio of actresses is, it is the supporting
performances that really shine here.
Alison Janney, Claire Danes and John C.,
Reilly are great. But Stephen Dillane, Miranda Richardson,
Ed Harris and Collette are each worth the price of admission
all by themselves.
And yet… I still didn’t get everything out of The Hours
that I hoped to get, even in the second screening. What is this movie really asking us? I’m still not quite sure. And
maybe that’s what some people really love about this film. There is one central connective relationship
that goes unexplored, outside of lovely platitudes. And that really bothered me. That
was the relationship I most wanted to explore. But alas, no.
Some have called this a “gay agenda movie.” I still am trying to figure out just what agenda
there is in the film. It’s
not about gayness over being gay.
It never blames the misery on being gay.
Though the facts are out on the table, there isn’t
a real back-and-forth about what it all means.
The only agenda I see is to make a difficult story
come to life on the big screen, to mixed results. All there really is are the seconds… the moments…
the minutes…
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