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Three time periods. Three amazing women. Three touching stories. Three instances of hot girl-on-girl kissing. What a great movie! The critical darling known as The Hours is a touching, important, emotionally devastating dramatic piece that has some of the hottest female talent in Hollywood making out with other chicks. They say it's a chick flick, but come on, what guy doesn't want to see Nicole Kidman make-out with Miranda Richardson! Even with Nicole's funky "check me out, I'm a serious actress" nose!? Chick flick? This thing's practically a stud film! The film is the story of three women in different time periods, all connected by a book. Nicole Kidman is writing the book in the 1920s, when two women kissing is a scandal. Julianne Moore is reading the book in the 1950s, when two women kissing is an experiment. Meryl Streep is living the book today, when two women kissing is their God-given right. All three women embrace their characters, bringing their individual stories to life, moving the overall arc of the story along, and kissing other women. Nicole Kidman gives an especially impressive performance, even when she's not kissing another woman. She so becomes Virginia Woolf that you at times forget that underneath that nose, that's Nicole Kidman, sexy starlet of Moulin Rouge, The Others and various Tom Cruise movies. This film is an actor's film. The cast contains a ton of famous people, and even John C. Reilly, who isn't really famous, but Hollywood sure is trying to convince us that he is. Everyone does a fine job, especially the ones who have to kiss the three main women. No easy task, but they're upto the it. The movie can be mesmerizing, the way the three story lines parallel and intertwine, moving from one time period to the other with an ease that is usually found only in Quantum Leap reruns. There are a lot of important, deep issues dealt with in this film. Like, really deep. We're talking beyond the normal deepness of two women making out. This is drama with a capitol D. You leave the theater feeling a little smarter, a little sadder and, if you're anything like me, totally turned on. These are three women trapped in lives which have not gone as planned. And this is the day that something happens. It's a powerful concept, not very Hollywood at all, and one wonders how they got the film made in the first place. (Aside form the obvious "Dude! Chicks kissing!" angle, of course.) But thanks to some inspired writing, directing and editing, there is a lot to seek your teeth into with this movie, and I, for one, am glad they pushed it into production and out onto the screens. It's already won some Golden Globe awards, and it's bound to win an Oscar or two, and that, as much as anything else, tells you that you probably should run out and see it or everyone at the water cooler will laugh at your ignorance. I'm giving The Hours 4 2/5 Babylons. A smart movie that knows how to capitalize on casting three of the biggest women in Hollywood. One word: lesbianism. Thank goodness the director realized that the themes of abandonment, women's rights, and control were not enough to make this an winner. THE HOURS |
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