The Hours

I first read Mrs Dalloway, and then The Hours, before watching this film. I found Mrs Dalloway tedious - perhaps not as tedious as the film's Richard's novel, but a bit too stream-of-conciousness for my taste. The novel by Michael Cunningham was a little easier, but still a little dry. I really would have never pictured it as a film.

However, with three incredible actresses, this excellent adaptation draws the parallels between the three plotlines in a way the novel does not - fading seamlessly from one character to the next. The tie between Richard and Mrs Brown is revealed much earlier in the film (or if there were allusions in the book I missed them) as Richard looks at a picture of his mother as he contemplates his suicide. The themes of female love, a life of desperation, and suicide are strongly felt in the film, as they were in Virgina Woolf's novel and apparently in her life. When Woolf tells her husband "Given the choice between Richmond and death, I choose death" we feel just how desperate she has become to escape. And when Mrs Brown tells Clarissa ("Mrs Dalloway") "In order to regret, you must have a choice. My choice was between life or death - I chose life" we see that some women are not meant for the "traditional" female roles. Mrs Brown had to escape her family life - we know it was never really her choice to begin with - and she found peace in living a life of isolation and books. She tells Clarissa that she is lucky that she wanted children - we know Mrs Brown never truly did. And when Virgina tells Leonard that "you cannot find peace in escaping life" we know she means the life you want to lead, not a life you've been forced into.