Barnes & Noble

A complex, engrossing tale primarily enacted by three of the finest actresses working in film today, The Hours interweaves the stories of three profoundly unhappy women linked by an unforgettable book that reveals more about them than they care to admit. David Hare’s adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is intricately structured and meticulously layered, and it creates an emotional vortex that’s as unforgettable as it is powerful. Nicole Kidman, deliberately de-glamorized, portrays novelist Virginia Woolf as a tortured soul whose brilliant work emerges out of her struggle with mental illness. Many years later, Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway has a hypnotic effect on Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), an emotionally barren housewife who cares little for her loving husband (John C. Reilly) and finds Cold War suburban life intolerable. Still later, Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep), a middle-aged lesbian living in New York, conceals her private desperation while caring for her suicidal, AIDS-ravaged former lover (Ed Harris). Director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) unobtrusively guides the three disparate story lines toward their inevitable conclusions, allowing his outstanding performers plenty of latitude in illustrating the different views of love, passion, and duty that comprise the movie’s core. There are no heroes or villains in this yarn, only people who -- like many of us -- silently yearn for something they fear they will never attain. Their longing is conveyed, palpably but with subtlety, in this richly emotional drama, a tour de force by virtue of its superb cast. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

Three women, separated by a span of nearly 80 years, find themselves weathering similar crises, all linked by a single work of literature in this film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham. In 1923, Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) is attempting to start work on her novel Mrs. Dalloway, in which she chronicles one day in the life of a troubled woman. But Virginia has demons of her own, and she struggles to overcome the depression and suicidal impulses that have followed her throughout her life, as her husband Leonard (Stephen Dillane) ineffectually tries to help. In 1951, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is a housewife living in suburban Los Angeles, where she looks after her son Richie (Jack Rovello) and husband Dan (John C. Reilly). Laura is also an avid reader who is currently making her way through Mrs. Dalloway. The farther she gets into the novel, the more Laura discovers that it reflects a dissatisfaction she feels in her own life, and she finds herself pondering the notion of leaving her life behind. Finally, in 2000, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) is a literary editor who is caring for Richard Brown (Ed Harris), a former boyfriend and noted author, who is slowly losing his fight with AIDS. Clarissa is trying to arrange a party to celebrate the fact that Richard has won a prestigious literary award, but is getting little help from Richard's ex-lover, Louis (Jeff Daniels). As she labors to help Richard through another day, he wonders if his life is worth the unending struggle. The Hours also features Toni Collette, Miranda Richardson, Allison Janney, and Claire Danes. Mark Deming

Village Voice

It's an astonishing Kidman who contributes the film's -- and maybe the year's -- most inspired turn. Dennis Lim

New York Times

Ms. Kidman, in a performance of astounding bravery, evokes the savage inner war waged by a brilliant mind against a system of faulty wiring that transmits a searing, crazy static into her brain. Stephen Holden

Washington Post

You don't just love the movie for its structure but for the haunted people in it, making each other miserable, but forcing each other to face who they are. Desson Howe

San Francisco Chronicle

A film that's fuller and deeper than the book. Mick LaSalle

Product Details

• UPC: 097363399032
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Time: 1:54:00

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Hours/Heartburn