After more than 700 imdb reviews of "The Hours", what hasn't already been said? I didn't get to see this movie until 22 years after it's release, so I am, once again, very late to the party. Having once been an English major and having been very impressed by the British writers of the early twentieth century, especially Virginia Woolf, I feel compelled from within to write this, the 712th review of this film.
The subject of suicide is very dark and disturbing to me. Although I can't remember ever seriously contemplating it, there have been very troubling periods of my life when it probably wouldn't have been entirely ruled out as a possibility. Although I am no expert, I think that the act of suicide is motivated by intense pain, either physical or emotional. I am very fortunate never to have been forced to endure such intolerable pain.
What has most perplexed me about suicide, a very complex matter in the first place, is when highly successful people reach the point where they no longer have the will to live. Based on the fact that actor Ed Harris is just slightly younger than I am, I estimate that his mother in the film, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), contemplated suicide at the same time that I was her son's age. As oppressive as the 1950's were supposed to be, I never knew anyone in my parent's generation, known as "the greatest generation" and for very good reason, who succeeded at suicide. Whether they considered suicide or not is unknown to me, but not one of their peers actually followed through with it. In fact, all of the suicides I have personally known ended their lives in the 21st century. As much as Hollywood tries to convince me that the 1950's were so stifling and so awful, it has actually been the 21st century that has posed the most daunting emotional challenges, not only to me personally but to all of the people around me. In the 1950's and beyond, my mother's very existence revolved around her children, and it is unthinkable that she would ever even weigh a decision to abandon us, even if she had good reason to do so, especially in my case as such a rotten child.
As an impressionable college student who very much appreciated the gifted writing talent of Ms. Woolf, I was very troubled that someone who had achieved such a high degree of success should feel the necessity to end it all, and I still am distressed by the thought of it at the ripe old age of 75. My level of discomfort, however, could not possibly approach Ms. Woolf's state of extreme distress. I find this so very sad, especially considering that she had such a strong network of potential emotional support, something that was so obviously missing in my own life, marked by a constant condition of extreme alienation and isolation from the human race itself. The pain, both physical and emotional, of the film's character of Richard Brown, on the eve of receiving the most prestigious award for his craft, directly paralleled that of author Woolf. For me, it is all very unsettling, but I am not afraid of facing such a difficult, unpleasant subject.
The acting was excellent, and I have nothing to add to that which has already been said in these reviews. I must commend director Stephen Daldry for his outstanding ability to weave so skillfully three different but intertwined stories from three very different periods.
In 1979, Merrill Streep began her very successful acting career as Joanna Kramer, who, for whatever reason, decided to abandon her young son. Over two decades later, she ended this film with Laura Brown, who had made the exact same decision. This remarkable cinematic coincidence did not escape me.
Speaking of coincidences, Ms. Streep and I came into the world practically in the same place and at the same time. She was born two months after me at a hospital in Summit, New Jersey, only a few miles from my childhood home and where several of my playmates were born. She became a huge Hollywood actress and a household word, and I became...well, that's for another review.
The subject of suicide is very dark and disturbing to me. Although I can't remember ever seriously contemplating it, there have been very troubling periods of my life when it probably wouldn't have been entirely ruled out as a possibility. Although I am no expert, I think that the act of suicide is motivated by intense pain, either physical or emotional. I am very fortunate never to have been forced to endure such intolerable pain.
What has most perplexed me about suicide, a very complex matter in the first place, is when highly successful people reach the point where they no longer have the will to live. Based on the fact that actor Ed Harris is just slightly younger than I am, I estimate that his mother in the film, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), contemplated suicide at the same time that I was her son's age. As oppressive as the 1950's were supposed to be, I never knew anyone in my parent's generation, known as "the greatest generation" and for very good reason, who succeeded at suicide. Whether they considered suicide or not is unknown to me, but not one of their peers actually followed through with it. In fact, all of the suicides I have personally known ended their lives in the 21st century. As much as Hollywood tries to convince me that the 1950's were so stifling and so awful, it has actually been the 21st century that has posed the most daunting emotional challenges, not only to me personally but to all of the people around me. In the 1950's and beyond, my mother's very existence revolved around her children, and it is unthinkable that she would ever even weigh a decision to abandon us, even if she had good reason to do so, especially in my case as such a rotten child.
As an impressionable college student who very much appreciated the gifted writing talent of Ms. Woolf, I was very troubled that someone who had achieved such a high degree of success should feel the necessity to end it all, and I still am distressed by the thought of it at the ripe old age of 75. My level of discomfort, however, could not possibly approach Ms. Woolf's state of extreme distress. I find this so very sad, especially considering that she had such a strong network of potential emotional support, something that was so obviously missing in my own life, marked by a constant condition of extreme alienation and isolation from the human race itself. The pain, both physical and emotional, of the film's character of Richard Brown, on the eve of receiving the most prestigious award for his craft, directly paralleled that of author Woolf. For me, it is all very unsettling, but I am not afraid of facing such a difficult, unpleasant subject.
The acting was excellent, and I have nothing to add to that which has already been said in these reviews. I must commend director Stephen Daldry for his outstanding ability to weave so skillfully three different but intertwined stories from three very different periods.
In 1979, Merrill Streep began her very successful acting career as Joanna Kramer, who, for whatever reason, decided to abandon her young son. Over two decades later, she ended this film with Laura Brown, who had made the exact same decision. This remarkable cinematic coincidence did not escape me.
Speaking of coincidences, Ms. Streep and I came into the world practically in the same place and at the same time. She was born two months after me at a hospital in Summit, New Jersey, only a few miles from my childhood home and where several of my playmates were born. She became a huge Hollywood actress and a household word, and I became...well, that's for another review.
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