The Hours

I found that the movie The Hours was interesting, but not easy to watch. In one part, it was constantly switching between the three stories, making connections that you had to follow. This wasn't that hard to grasp and the way that the movie makers did it (with the different bouquets of flowers, for example) was creative and artistic. My main difficulty with the movie was how dark it was. As we discussed in class, the tone of the movie was significantly more depressing, starting from the very beginning where we see Virginia Woolf kill herself. As a whole , I think the reasons for this difference in tone are three-fold: first is the New York City setting as the backdrop for the Mrs. Dalloway story instead of the London backdrop of the book; second is the character of Richard, who seems to be a combined Peter, Septimus, etc; and third is the general depression and lack of zest for life of the characters as a whole.

So, the New York setting. I am a person who doesn't really like cities anyway, and in this movie New York was especially hostile and sad. The apartment building that Clarissa lived in was not as nice as Mrs. Dalloway's in the book, or even as nice as Clarissa's in The Hours. I pictured Mrs. Dalloway living in a kind of fancy hotel environment, and in the first scene you can see the grafitti on the walls of the builing and the iron gates that you have to open to get out of it. Because the filmakers set the movie in the winter, the harshness of the city is amplified. It is quite dark, with a blue tint rather than a gold one, making it seem sadder. The gray snow and the darkness of the interiors of the buildings, even the flower shop, also add to this feeling. The king of depressing settings is Richard's apartment. Frankly, it made me kind of queasy to see all of the piled up dishes and the shuttered windows and Richard in his robe and beanie cap just sitting there...Even though the book acknowledges that Septimus is deeply troubled and often thinks about death and other violent, dark things, his external environment is light and well-taken care of by his caring wife. Their walks in St. James's Park have a springlike quality to them, with children playing and women knitting. Their home, especially in the last scene before Septimus's suicide, seems warm and cozy. Richard's environment is much darker.

Richard's impact on the darkness of the story goes much further than his environment. He is called Richard (like Richard Dalloway), which brings to mind the stable, content husband of Mrs. Dalloway, who takes care of her and loves his daughter very much. However there are major parts of his character that belong to Septimus--namely the depression and the jumping out the window. There are also parts of his character that belong to Peter Walsh; he keeps up a steady stream of banter with Clarissa, yet he also seems to reveal to her parts of his character that he reveals to no one else. This character combination not only creates confusion, but also removes many of the characters who lightened the story from the scene. There is no Mr. Vaughn because he died, so there is no husband to take care of Clarissa and her daughter and to add an element of stability to the character's lives. There is also none of the serious playfulness (I know that's an oxymoron, but his attitude is difficult to describe) of Peter; no "Musing among the vegetables?", no impetuous declarations of love. In the movie there is just Richard, and some other male characters who don't seem to fit in quite anywhere. Virginia's husband might be considered a Richard figure, but I'll have to think about that one more.

Finally, there is the overall dysfunctional quality of all of the main characters. In a nutshell, all of them seem to be falling apart. Clarissa is freaking out about her party, about Richard, and about how everything in her life is trivial. Laura is completely depressed, can't even manage to make a cake, and then goes off to kill herself in a hotel room (although she never ends up doing it). Virginia is preoccupied with writing and her dark thoughts, and eventually ends up killing herself. It may not be nice, but I find it very difficult to be entirely sympathetic to people who are letting their lives go and who do not realize the value of it. I know that depression is a legitimate disease, but I still just want to say "pull it together and move on"! At various points in the movie, you could see the women and their lives just careening towards a breaking point...and it's not particularly fun to watch three train wrecks.

Overall, I feel that the movie took the darkness in the women's lives a little too far, by the end of the movie there was hope for them in their lives, and for others who sometimes feel as they did, but not much.