Nicole Kidman

Three stories are told in The Hours, and though decades and continents separate them, they’re bound together by themes that resonate long after you leave the theater. In 1923, Virginia Woolf is starting work on her novel Mrs. Dalloway while struggling against depression. In post-World War II California, unhappy housewife Laura Brown reads Mrs. Dalloway as she contemplates suicide. In modern-day New York, Clarissa Vaughn shares Mrs. Dalloway’s first name as well as her penchant for “planning parties to cover up the silence.”

The complex, literate script by David Hare (based on the novel by Michael Cunningham) weaves these stories together seamlessly. We see each woman through the course of a single day. Each is planning a party, of sorts, that should be festive but somehow feels like it won’t be. Each is trying, with varying degrees of success, to live up to the expectations that are placed on her, by society or herself.

Three strong actresses anchor the film. Nicole Kidman disappears into the role of Virginia Woolf, and not just because she’s almost unrecognizable behind her makeup. It’s a quiet but fierce performance as a woman striving to retain her individuality in the face of the disapproving glares of her servants and the loving disappointment of her husband. Suffocating in a world that only expects her to decide what to serve for lunch, she dares to want more.

Meryl Streep and Ed Harris

Julianne Moore is fragile and skittish as the self-loathing Laura. She struggles to accomplish even the most mundane household task, barely disguises her discomfort around her husband and son and is so paralyzed by anxiety that she can’t even bring herself to open the door when someone knocks. She wants to be the wife she feels her husband deserves, but she’s desperately unhappy and feels trapped in the post-war American dream.

Meryl Streep has, perhaps, the most complicated character. Where Virginia and Laura are constrained by the conventions of their times, her Clarissa is in a trap of her own making. Though she’s in a long-term relationship, she still longs for her first love, Richard, a brilliant poet dying of AIDS. Clarissa is constantly trying to convince herself – and him – that he is healthier and happier than he really is. Her cheerful competence is her way of reassuring herself that everything will be alright.

Julianne Moore and Jack Rovello

While the actresses are brilliant, the men in their lives are more of a mixed bag. Ed Harris gives a gut-wrenching performance as the tragic, difficult Richard, who has never quite gotten over an old betrayal. Stephen Dillane is perfectly cast as the harried Leonard Woolf, who loves Virginia but can’t help chiding her for not being a more conventional wife. John C. Reilly, however, is stuck on one doofusy note as Laura’s salt-of-the-earth husband, whose gushing supportiveness only makes her choices more difficult.

Director Stephen Daldry tells these stories with tenderness and sympathy, compassionately examining the small moments of their days. The result is a beautiful, emotional, haunting film about people who are trying to figure out how – or if – they fit into the world. In the end, some characters choose death and some choose life. The Hours is a sad movie, but with a grain of hope buried inside.

Gorilla Pants rating: 3.5 out of 4 bananas