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Hours, The
Paramount Pictures


8.5

based on 39 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 126 votes
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MPAA RATING: PG-13 for mature thematic elements, some disturbing images and brief language

Starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, and Miranda Richardson

The story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place; all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. (Paramount)

GENRE(S):	Romance
WRITTEN BY:	David Hare Michael Cunningham (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Stephen Daldry
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: June 24, 2003 Video: June 24, 2003 Theatrical: December 27, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	114 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Received 9 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Stephen Daldry) and Best Actress (Nicole Kidman). Named Best Picture of 2002 by the National Board of Review. Received 7 Golden Globe nominations, including Best Picture (Drama).

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A splendid film. It uses all the resources of cinema -- masterful writing, superb acting, directorial intelligence, an enveloping score, top-of-the-line production design, costumes, cinematography and editing -- to make a film whose cumulative emotional power takes viewers by surprise, capturing us unawares in its ability to move us as deeply as it does.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The result is something rare, especially considering how fine the novel is, a film that's fuller and deeper than the book.

100

The New Yorker David Denby

The twin themes of The Hours are the variety of human bonds, especially the bond of love, and the gift that the dying make to the living. The miracle is that such sombre notions fit together as surely and lightly as the dancers in a Balanchine ballet. [23 & 30 December 2002, p. 166]

100

The New York Times Stephen Holden

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.

100

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It never disconnects from two values: its honesty and its intensity.

100

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore bring dignity and Oscar-worthy performances to The Hours, a lovingly crafted meditation on death, loss and literature.

100

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

Near-perfect in every way, The Hours is a compelling meditation on making the most of what we're given in life. For some, it may be too cerebral a film experience, but for those who blissfully fall into its finely tuned modulations, The Hours is timeless.

100

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

There are levels of complexity and nuance and intellectual rigor in The Hours -- it's clearly a film into which you could gain continued insight after several viewings.

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Kidman, Moore, and Streep do some of their best work, backed by a first-rank supporting cast.

100

Washington Post Desson Thomson

With its deft intercutting of place and time, the film creates a powerful sense of mysticism and fate.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Considerable intelligence and strategic finesse have been brought to bear on this handsomely mounted adaptation of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which was hardly a natural for the bigscreen.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The links and resonances remain largely abstract -- to understand them isn't necessarily to be moved by them -- while the individual dramas of those three lives are often stirring, and the three starring performances are unforgettable.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

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

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

For a movie audience, The Hours doesn't connect in a neat way, but introduces characters who illuminate mysteries of sex, duty and love.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

The film actually improves on Cunningham's novel, thanks to gorgeous cinematography, a deft script by playwright David Hare, a mournful, melodious but never intrusive score by Philip Glass and a superb cast that brings the delicately formed characters to full, raging, sorrowful life.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Brilliantly interweaves stories that take place decades apart, and features stellar work by three of the best English-speaking actresses: Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Kidman's Virginia Woolf is already controversial -- Yet there's something fierce, noble and deeply affecting in her work that mirrors Woolf's prose style, and her turbulent presence is the soul of the movie.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Cunningham's novel was helped by his prose, which curves gracefully in the historical present to unify the book in some degree. Stripped of that tegument, the film depends more blatantly on Woolf's fate to give it organism and depth.

Film Threat Darrin Keene

Much ado has been made about the Oscar-caliber cast that’s been assembled for The Hours. The film’s true star, however, is its script.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

Proved that cheerless, existentially unflinching literature can provide the basis for exhilarating cinema.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

If all three of the women’s lives had come across with equal weight and artistry, the film, which glides back and forth among them, might have approached the symphonic. But only the Streep section truly inspires the kind of awe and terror that the film as a whole strives for.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

I'm sure mainstream audiences will be baffled, but, for those with at least a minimal appreciation of Woolf and Clarissa Dalloway, The Hours represents two of those well spent.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

This ranks among the highest concentrations of acting talent brought to any screen. But let's spare no praise for David Hare, whose superb script draws heavily on his playwrighting skills.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Still: The Hours is a book about people writing, reading, and living another book, and that literariness makes the movie resist itself.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Will no doubt figure prominently in the awards season. But be warned, you can cut the gloom with a knife.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Cunningham's and Woolf's novels are dedicated to capturing a person's essence through the events of a single day, and Daldry's film is faithful to that aim. But the range of life presented here feels constricted; the movie misses the sublime for all of the despair.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

These three unimprovable actresses make The Hours a thing of beauty.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Richly layered, deliberately paced, dealing with difficult emotions and life decisions, it feels like a moody wintry afternoon.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

That makes it hard to watch "Billy Elliot" director Stephen Daldry's adaptation without thinking of the one Almodóvar might have made -- which surely would have been warmer, less self-consciously tony, and less relentlessly arid than the one that did get made.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

It's a noble work, an elegant work, a compassionate work -- and a somewhat tedious and glaringly self-important work.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The result is somewhat better than a Masterpiece Theatre gloss job, but it's far from the essence of Woolf.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

While we can admire their attractive exteriors, we don't know anything about the interior lives of the three women so vibrantly miserable in their unhappiness.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Though Daldry elicits brilliant performances, particularly from Meryl Streep and Claire Danes, on balance The Hours is more pretentious than penetrating about existential despair.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A meticulous, elaborate stunt, a movie two degrees of separation from its source, and maybe another degree from viewers' hearts.

Slate David Edelstein

I found the film -- excruciatingly flat-footed, with one of the most exasperating scores (by Philip Glass) ever written. The most fascinating thing in the movie is a nose.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

You can only cram so much of this stuff into a movie without putting your audience to sleep -- The movie sags badly in the middle, swirling around itself without making headway.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's sometimes hard to breath for the sheer volume of acting sucking the air out of the room, and keeping three narratives movie without muddling them all is a hugely ambitious undertaking for any director, let alone one on his second film.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

You have to grasp at straws to make even "poetic" sense of the narrative.

Time Richard Schickel

A grim and uninvolving film, for which Philip Glass unwittingly provides the perfect score -- tuneless, oppressive, droning, painfully self-important.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 126 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Martin H. gave it a10:
This is not just a Drama film. This is the most beautiful movie ever created so sad and so beautiful this is pure art.

Nadie gave it a10:
This movie makes you really believe that cinema is the 7th art form. The magnificent script is complemented by astonishing performances that are very well directed and edited to perfection. The cherry on top: Mr. Glass music. “Come to bed Laura Brown…” represents much more than a line. Everyone knows a person that is trapped in a life where it doesn’t belong. This movie teaches you that you can change your life the instant you decide to do it.

Nick A. gave it a10:
Well where do you begin? Quite simply one of those movies that restores your faith in modern film. The performances of the three leads is irresistible although in all honesty the oscar should have gone to Julianne Moore who in my opinion gave the best performance of any actress in recent years. The director manages to bring the lives of the three together beautifully in an astonishing finale, the supporting cast are also wonderful and the score compliments this masterpiece beautifully, the themes it touches upon tug at your heart and leave you emotionally drained at the end but its worth it because cinema doesnt get any better than this. Put simply brilliant, sensational, a modern masterpiece.

Bernardo S. gave it a10:
This is definetely my favourite movie ever. The performances and the script are flawless. It kept me looking at the screen without even blinking for the whole movie.

Casey A. gave it a10:
Easily one of the best movies of all-time.

Steve gave it a1:
Typical overhyped Hollywood crap. "Let's stare at screwed up people for two hours while they talk about how screwed up they are" Oh, and they're better be gay people involved or someone might be offended. When will Hollywood get over themselves.

Alex R. gave it a10:
This is one of the movies that either you get and love or you don’t get and completely hate. I guess you need to have an idea of the seeming senselessness of depression to appreciate any of these woman's portraits of a day. If you don’t have such an idea, you are just gonna feel this is pretentious melodramatic soap opera fare with a sophisticated acting, photography, and soundtrack. I guess its all about chemicals in your head and the way the work, but if you haven’t tasted them, you cant understand what this movie is about and just regard it as nonsense, which is very respectable of course. For that user who recommended watching other movies if you wanted to see movies about women or movies that pretended to be artistic, I got to say that The Hours does not attempt to be either type of a movie! This movie is not about women, it is about people going through a painful existentialist phase. This movie is not trying to be artistic in the way Adaptation or Mullholland Drive do, it attempts to rapture the viewer into that sad micro cosmos and maybe give him/her some hope (as ironic as that might sound for those who just cannot relate, critics and users alike). So again, if you don’t know what depression is, be happy about it and don’t see this movie, enjoy your life, you'll have enough problems in it without trying to even think about it much. If you do know (which does not make you better) this might not only be an enjoyable experience, but one that can even give you a somewhat comforting message woven within.

Hours, The Paramount Pictures

Hours, The
Paramount Pictures