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The Hours
The Barnes & Noble Review
The Hours is Michael Cunningham's crystalline meditation on consciousness and identity, drawing on Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel, Mrs. Dalloway -- a postmodern masterpiece whose minimal action takes place on a single June day in postwar London.
The Hours is Michael Cunningham's crystalline meditation on consciousness and identity, drawing on Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel, Mrs. Dalloway -- a postmodern masterpiece whose minimal action takes place on a single June day in postwar London.
The Hours progresses in fuguelike fashion: First we meet Clarissa Vaughan, a New York book editor dubbed "Mrs Dalloway" by her longtime friend and former lover Richard. Next, Cunningham presents Woolf herself, beginning work in 1923 on what is to become Mrs. Dalloway. And finally we are introduced to Laura Brown, a California housewife who is avidly reading Woolf's novel.
Scenes from these three narratives are presented in recurrent identical succession: "Mrs. Dalloway," Mrs. Woolf, Mrs. Brown -- all bristling with connections and startling parallels. The "Mrs. Dalloway" strand is particularly rich, filled as it is with one-to-one correspondences to Woolf's novel. But the deepest and most important thing that The Hours shares with Mrs. Dalloway is "the feeling," as Woolf called it, "that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day." Cunningham's three women proceed through the day, through the hours, trying to keep themselves psychologically intact, like someone carrying a glass of water filled to the brim through a crowd and endeavoring not to spill it. They hesitate before plunging into the day because they know how hard it is to live in the world and remain identical with oneself. And they puzzle over a universal dilemma: how to bring the self into the world without its getting broken in the process. In The Hours, Michael Cunningham has explored this dilemma with an impressive and moving subtlety worthy of his great precursor. Benjamin Kunkel
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
2 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
About the author
David Hare
116 books85 followersSir David Hare (born 5 June 1947) is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre and film director. Most notable for his stage work, Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing The Hours in 2002, based on the novel written by Michael Cunningham, and The Reader in 2008, based on the novel of the same name written by Bernhard Schlink.
On West End, he had his greatest success with the plays Plenty, which he adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep in 1985, Racing Demon (1990), Skylight (1997), and Amy's View (1998). The four plays ran on Broadway in 1982–83, 1996, 1998 and 1999 respectively, earning Hare three Tony Award nominations for Best Play for the first three and two Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. Other notable projects on stage include A Map of the World, Pravda, Murmuring Judges, The Absence of War and The Vertical Hour. He wrote screenplays for the film Wetherby and the BBC drama Page Eight (2011).
As of 2013, Hare has received two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe Award nominations, three Tony Award nominations and has won a BAFTA Award, a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and two Laurence Olivier Awards. He has also been awarded several critics' awards such as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and received the Golden Bear in 1985. He was knighted in 1998.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ha...
On West End, he had his greatest success with the plays Plenty, which he adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep in 1985, Racing Demon (1990), Skylight (1997), and Amy's View (1998). The four plays ran on Broadway in 1982–83, 1996, 1998 and 1999 respectively, earning Hare three Tony Award nominations for Best Play for the first three and two Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. Other notable projects on stage include A Map of the World, Pravda, Murmuring Judges, The Absence of War and The Vertical Hour. He wrote screenplays for the film Wetherby and the BBC drama Page Eight (2011).
As of 2013, Hare has received two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe Award nominations, three Tony Award nominations and has won a BAFTA Award, a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and two Laurence Olivier Awards. He has also been awarded several critics' awards such as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and received the Golden Bear in 1985. He was knighted in 1998.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ha...
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 12, 2017
چه مسخره سانسور شده بود. به جای اینکه بگه همدیگرو بوسیدند، نوشته "هردو مسلط و راسخ به هم نگاه می کنند". :-)))))))))
November 29, 2024
I didn’t like this as much as I thought I would, though the first several times I watched the movie I was engrossed.
Michael Cunningham’s novel reads like a homage to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, but I found David Hare’s screenplay is more about the struggles of choosing to live or die. In David Hare’s screenplay the story was not just about Virginia Woolf but about the three women whose lives will become intertwined.
Maybe I didn’t like this as much, because reading the novel changed how I saw the movie.
But it was still worth reading, it’s just different, and I am sure I will watch the movie many more times.
Michael Cunningham’s novel reads like a homage to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, but I found David Hare’s screenplay is more about the struggles of choosing to live or die. In David Hare’s screenplay the story was not just about Virginia Woolf but about the three women whose lives will become intertwined.
Maybe I didn’t like this as much, because reading the novel changed how I saw the movie.
But it was still worth reading, it’s just different, and I am sure I will watch the movie many more times.
October 5, 2016
Jus beautiful in every possible way. Read it in an afternoon it was so delicious
June 27, 2023
Well I read this in a day. Thank you insomnia. Three stories going on in this book that may seem like a lot going on but it works well.
August 13, 2025
The Hours, based on the Man Booker Prize winner by Michael Cunningham
10 out of 10
Just as the original material is one of the best books in recent years, the film The Hours is one of the best motion pictures of the past decades.
It was nominated for a series of Oscars, including the most relevant ones for Best Film, Director, Writing, Supporting Actor and Actress and it won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Nicole Kidman.
The Hours took the Golden Globe for the same artist and for Best Drama, BAFTAs and many other prizes.
There are three separate and yet intertwined stories, of Virginia Woolf aka Nicole Kidman, Laura Brown aka Julianne Moore and Clarissa Vaughan aka Meryl Streep.
Virginia Woolf is struggling with her depression - I have recently read Any Human Heart, by the fabulous William Boyd, and in this extraordinary novel, Mrs. Woolf is depicted as a racist, rather obnoxious, negative, unlikeable creature.
The writer receives the visit of her sister, Vanessa Bell aka Miranda Richardson, and her noisy children, that find a fallen bird that would soon expire and will be buried with a flower, in the garden.
Virginia Woolf seems to have a permanent conflict with her servant, that does not like the idea of traveling to London, to get what her master wants for the visit of the sister and her children.
Absent during the talk, the author decides not to kill the main character of her novel, Mrs. Dalloway.
Nevertheless, Laura Brown, a woman who lives in America, in the fifties, is determined to commit suicide, inspired to some extent by the reading of Mrs. Dalloway and the inadequacies of her life, the marriage to a man who seems so alien to her, Dan Brown aka John C. Reilly.
Mrs. Brown is visited by her neighbor, Kitty aka Tony Collette, who may have a tumor in her womb and wants so much to live and have children, while the depressed Laura is about to kill herself, maybe.
The two woman kiss in an outre moment, then Laura Brown takes a room in a hotel, where she has taken her pills and maybe these will be her final Hours.
The third story takes place recently, in New York, where Clarissa Vaughan aka Meryl Streep is organizing a party for her friend, Richard Brown aka Ed Harris, who has won the most important poetry prize.
Alas, he is dying of AIDS, sardonically, he claims this is the reason they declared him the winner, and he is unstable, suffers from memory loss, changes of moods and depression, to name just a few afflictions.
Clarissa is a lesbian living with Sally Lester aka Allison Janney - I happened to see a show where this excellent artist talked about the making of The Hours and how Cardinal the work with Meryl Streep has been.
Meryl Streep has told Allison Janney that she has some advice and in the scene in which they kiss, she pulled the skin from the face of her partner, with a very good effect.
The Hours is not just formidable, it is outstanding, glorious, phenomenal and a pleasure to watch again...
It was scheduled on one of the many film channels we have now - Alhamdulillah! - and it is probably the third time that I have enjoyed this Masterpiece.
Posted 13th March 2019 by realini
10 out of 10
Just as the original material is one of the best books in recent years, the film The Hours is one of the best motion pictures of the past decades.
It was nominated for a series of Oscars, including the most relevant ones for Best Film, Director, Writing, Supporting Actor and Actress and it won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Nicole Kidman.
The Hours took the Golden Globe for the same artist and for Best Drama, BAFTAs and many other prizes.
There are three separate and yet intertwined stories, of Virginia Woolf aka Nicole Kidman, Laura Brown aka Julianne Moore and Clarissa Vaughan aka Meryl Streep.
Virginia Woolf is struggling with her depression - I have recently read Any Human Heart, by the fabulous William Boyd, and in this extraordinary novel, Mrs. Woolf is depicted as a racist, rather obnoxious, negative, unlikeable creature.
The writer receives the visit of her sister, Vanessa Bell aka Miranda Richardson, and her noisy children, that find a fallen bird that would soon expire and will be buried with a flower, in the garden.
Virginia Woolf seems to have a permanent conflict with her servant, that does not like the idea of traveling to London, to get what her master wants for the visit of the sister and her children.
Absent during the talk, the author decides not to kill the main character of her novel, Mrs. Dalloway.
Nevertheless, Laura Brown, a woman who lives in America, in the fifties, is determined to commit suicide, inspired to some extent by the reading of Mrs. Dalloway and the inadequacies of her life, the marriage to a man who seems so alien to her, Dan Brown aka John C. Reilly.
Mrs. Brown is visited by her neighbor, Kitty aka Tony Collette, who may have a tumor in her womb and wants so much to live and have children, while the depressed Laura is about to kill herself, maybe.
The two woman kiss in an outre moment, then Laura Brown takes a room in a hotel, where she has taken her pills and maybe these will be her final Hours.
The third story takes place recently, in New York, where Clarissa Vaughan aka Meryl Streep is organizing a party for her friend, Richard Brown aka Ed Harris, who has won the most important poetry prize.
Alas, he is dying of AIDS, sardonically, he claims this is the reason they declared him the winner, and he is unstable, suffers from memory loss, changes of moods and depression, to name just a few afflictions.
Clarissa is a lesbian living with Sally Lester aka Allison Janney - I happened to see a show where this excellent artist talked about the making of The Hours and how Cardinal the work with Meryl Streep has been.
Meryl Streep has told Allison Janney that she has some advice and in the scene in which they kiss, she pulled the skin from the face of her partner, with a very good effect.
The Hours is not just formidable, it is outstanding, glorious, phenomenal and a pleasure to watch again...
It was scheduled on one of the many film channels we have now - Alhamdulillah! - and it is probably the third time that I have enjoyed this Masterpiece.
Posted 13th March 2019 by realini
September 12, 2009
Brilliant. Surprisingly unique adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel. Hard to believe that two male writers understand the woman's mind so well, and the intricacies of a woman's life regarding timeless controvercial issues.
December 27, 2008
Just as amazing as the book and movie. Obviously they differ but if you enjoy one and appreciate analyzing their differences, strengths and weaknesses, then you'll enjoy this script.
August 14, 2011
Brilliant adaptation of the book.
December 14, 2018
دوستش نداشتم.حقیقتا جانم در اومد تا تمومش کردم.دوستش داشتید!نداشتم
December 23, 2019
Amazing screenplay adaptation of my favourite book. David Hare took a very challenging book created a visual and dialogue script with grace, emotion and compelling characters. A true gem.
January 28, 2025
"SALLY I THINK I'LL BUY THE FLOWERS MYSELF!"
*Cracks eggs and crumbles to the kitchen floor like Meryl Streep*
This script is a work of art.
*Cracks eggs and crumbles to the kitchen floor like Meryl Streep*
This script is a work of art.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews