The Hours
Grade: |
 |
Plot Summary:
The story of three women in three different time periods who are linked together through the novel Mrs.Dalloway. Much sadness and depression ensue...Opinion:
There are a number of reasons why my opinion of movies like “The Hours” is irrelevant—and 99% of them are probably related to my gender. “The Hours”--an exploration of the lives of three women in three separate time periods—is clearly a ‘chick flick’. The women and their issues take center stage, and the (few) male characters are on the periphery. Yet, saying that a man cannot understand the inner feelings of any of the women in “The Hours”--and thus the movie itself--is, in my opinion, cheapening to both men and women. Sure, there are differences between the sexes—but Mars and Venus are still within the same solar system, after all. A good movie will bridge the gap between men and women, allowing someone on the 'outside' to see (and feel) what the 'inside' is like without being completely impenetrable. “Raise the Red Lantern” is just as much a movie entirely dedicated to women and their issues as “The Hours” is, and that’s one of my Top 5 movies all time!All of this is a roundabout way of saying that “The Hours” as a movie has flaws—serious ones—and I don’t think the fact that I’m a guy and thus ‘don’t understand’ can explain them away. I would think that any woman who thinks rationally about the movie would ask the same questions I do--without getting caught up entirely within the waves of sadness and emotion the movie presents.
The basic flaw is this: all three women in this movie are sad. The movie shows us that they are sad. The movie shows us the things that they do because they are sad. The movie does not show us, however, why they are sad, nor (more importantly) what things needed to happen in order for them not to be sad.
In other words, the movie seems to want to be about happiness and sadness, yet avoids entirely the issue of what causes us to be happy or sad in the first place—which seems to me to be a fairly significant omission. Without taking
any kind of a stand as to ‘happiness comes from ____’ or ‘happiness does NOT come from ______’, the movie--despite the uniformly excellent acting and production values--turns out to be fairly hollow. Female viewers may respond emotionally to the plight of the three women in the movie—but shouldn’t women be asking the same question that I do? What,
fundamentally, is this movie trying to say about happiness and sadness? What should we, the viewers, obtain from this movie
when the credits roll…other than ‘Boy, those were some sad women!’
(A more detailed analysis can be found in the In-Depth Analysis below)
Content Analysis: (2-2-0-2 on the Baron's scale)
There’s little from a strict PSV standpoint to get worked up about in "The Hours". There's a common thread of lesbianism (from slight inclinations in the first two, to a long term public lesbian relationship in the third) that will probably be the major cause of objection. Unless you’re the type, though, who objects to movies merely because they have gay characters, there’s not much to worry about—the only full-out lesbian couple here is by far the least affectionate couple in the entire movie. Homosexuality is presented as a fact, but not as the solution (or the problem) to any of the women’s unhappiness. (Another instance of the movie not taking a stand…)The depiction of suicide in two different cases can be more problematic, although it’s hard to cleanly divide ‘depiction’ from ‘advocation’. The movie doesn’t say the characters in the movie should have committed suicide, nor that they should not have. (See a trend here?) Again, in keeping with the movie’s fickleness, it fails to take any kind of a stand whether either of the two suicide victims’ throwing away their lives at the moment they did was good, bad, or neither.
In-depth Analysis:
Let’s discuss each of the three women’s stories in turn, and see what’s ‘missing’:(1) Virginia Woolf, author of Ms. Dalloway, is an unhappy woman. She is said to be tormented by inner demons (mental illness, most obviously) and we’re shown her suicide within the first five minutes of the movie. Having shown it first, her eventual death casts a cloud over everything else that happens with her during all her later scenes (shown in flashback). This becomes a problem because the key scene between her and her husband near the end of the movie concerns important decisions as to living in the country, versus returning to the city, seeing the doctors versus not seeing the doctors again, etc. Virginia is adamant that she be allowed to choose what's best for her--to life her life her way, being--as she says--the only one who understands her condition. This sounds fine on the face of it...except it makes it sound like she’s dying of cancer or something and wants to die on her terms. She didn't die involuntary—she committed suicide. She chose to die. She reached a point where she could no longer stand living, and then ended it. That means whatever choices she made for her benefit didn’t work. If, in the end, she still felt compelled to take her own life, how does her ‘triumph’ in getting what she wanted from her supporting husband mean anything?
Ironically, her final letter to her husband mentions that she doesn’t believe that any two people could love each other more than the two of them did…and yet, she still killed herself. Doesn’t the non-involuntariness of her death undermine every important point she tried to make about love and life? In fact, Virginia seems to treat her impending suicide as if it was inevitable from the very beginning (like dying of cancer)…yet under the circumstances I think it’s a fair question to ask why? What could she have done so she didn’t feel compelled to end it all? What was she lacking? Why doesn’t the movie consider this an important question?
(2) Laura Brown (played by Julianne Moore) is an unhappy woman. While the possibility of her being mentally ill is not discussed directly in her section of the movie, it seems hard to deny it just by watching how she deals with things in her life. Her unhappiness does not seem to be caused by her husband, who’s pleasant and supportive every time we see him. Nor does it seem to be caused by her son, who, as kids go, seems fairly well-behaved. And, yet, her unhappiness is very tangible. Her section of the story continues with her contemplating suicide, and then having a brief affectionate encounter with a neighbor. (Is her unhappiness caused by not having someone to love, as hinted at by this encounter? If so, why can’t she seem to love her husband and son—who don’t seem to be all that difficult to love, after all. If she really can’t love them—whose fault is that, hers or theirs?)
The key to her story lies in the end—where she runs away and abandons her family, and later turns up decades later at the house of Clarissa (woman #3), tying the stories together. Very little is said about what happened in the intervening decades, other than she worked as a librarian.
And this is the key flaw in this part of the movie—what happened in those intervening decades is a vital part of completing her character. If she was really mentally ill (as I would suppose), then obviously her running away from her family would not have led to greater happiness--since the problem was within. Those years away would have been just as depressing (if not more so) because she didn’t affect the root of the real problem. If she was not mentally ill (perhaps just couldn’t stand having family responsibilities anymore) than the intervening decades should have been happier (at least, more carefree). The problem is the movie doesn’t say either way. She says in the end that leaving her family was something she ‘had to do’ (again, seemingly treating as inevitable something which doesn’t seem inevitable at all…), but makes no statement--nor are we allowed to see anything--about whether her choice actually led to greater happiness for her or not. That missing part makes her whole story arc hollow in reality, because the movie refuses to deal with fundamental questions of her (and our) happiness—where does it come from, and what do we have to do to obtain it?
(3) More of the same in Part 3, where Clarissa is unhappy despite having a seemingly stable and supportive relationship, and doing service for her dying ex-husband Richard. Is her unhappiness caused by her spending too much time serving him? Not enough? The movie doesn't say. Clarissa seems to get a brief lift from her adopted daughter when she comes home--so, movie, does happiness come from being with your family? The brief time with the daughter is also indicative of the contradictions of the entire movie. She refers to Laura as a 'monster' when she first arrives, but later seems to change her mind and give her a hug before she leaves...without anything really being said or done in the interim that leads to this change of heart.
The sheer inevitability of everything seems to be the underlying theme of the movie. Virginia and Richard were 'destined' to kill themselves--nothing that happened could have changed that. Laura and Clarissa were 'destined' to be unhappy their entire lives--it didn't matter what they did, who they loved, etc. That is a rather fatalistic view of human happiness, but under the circumstances, I can't read any other interpretation.
It may be that fundamentally I am not the person for which "The Hours"
was meant to connect with--certainly it has received enough praise around
the country to think that someone must be getting something out of it.
Or are they responding to the excellent performances without thinking too
much about the ideas behind the movie? I can't help feel the movie is like a philosophy professor whose
idea of teaching class is writing on the board "What is Happiness?"...and
then leaving
the room.
Random Notes & Comments:
(1) Interesting quotes from "The Hours"...where the characters don't seem to really mean them (based on what happens later):Virginia: Leonard, you cannot find peace by avoiding life.
Richard: I don't think two people could have been happier than we've been.
Virginia: Knowing life for what it is. Living life for what it is. Is the right of every human being.
