I don’t really have much of an exciting story to accompany my first viewing of The Hours, so i would say that this might be a relatively short entry... however, anyone who knows me knows that i can talk about nothing for hours on end (pun totally intended). So i’m going to play it safe, and not offer any heads up on what this one’s going to be about cuz really this could spin off anywhere.
As far back as i can remember, we have had a bit of a tradition in my family to go and rent out movies on the first week of all the school holiday breaks. Because apparently for us there was nothing better for kids to be doing than spending endless hours of sun-filled free time sitting in front of the tv watching movies. And when there’s four kids in ur family, u come home with a fucking truck load of videos.
So anyway this was one of those times—and even though i wasn’t at school anymore, my little sister and brother still were so the tradition was still fiercely maintained. Please, I aint gonna wait till end of semester to rent movies! And besides, by mid semester I’ve procrastinated so much that every movie that we own has been watched so it’s time to source some fresh material to keep the boring-ass assignments at bay. So i’m browsing my favourite section - the 7 day rent Drama shelves (new release = lame), and i see this movie, I’ve never seen or heard of it before, but apparently it has Meryl Streep in it so therefore it must be good. The other thing which ultimately intrigued me to pay the $1 rental for it, was that the cover has listed the three leading actresses - Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman; and it has three women pictured on it also, two of which i could easily tell were Meryl and Julianne, but Nicole was nowhere to be seen!? And i’m looking at it thinking, ‘where is she? Why is her name listed but she not be pictured? Is she perhaps hidden behind the woman with the obscenely large nose?’ Obviously now i couldn’t not watch it. And i had it in my mind that i was going to be playing a Where’s Wally? like game with Nicole for the next 2 hours and was getting kinda excited for it. Needless to say all the other kids are looking at me like ‘what da hell is wrong wit chu gurl??’
GAH MA GAWD IT IS AMAZING. U know ur in for an intellectual friggin mind-trip when in the first 10 minutes the sequence of events goes - Nicole Kidman, a mentally ill Virginia Woolf in 1921 begins writing the first sentence of her novel ‘Mrs. Dalloway’: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself”. Cuts to Julianne Moore who plays 1950s housewife Laura Brown, lying in bed she picks up a copy of the novel Mrs. Dalloway and reads : “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself”. Cuts to Meryl Streep, New Yorker in 2001 preparing a party for her long-time friend, she calls out : “Sally, i think i’ll buy the flowers myself”. MIND. BLOWN. O.o’’ Much of this kind of crazy intertwiningness of stories happens throughout the whole film. It’s brilliant.
As for the LGBTing which i’m sure ur waiting for me to mention (hey Brett), i love that in this film the lesbianism of the three leading characters just happens like a side note - it’s not dramatised and all emotional like how gay themes in movies usually are, it just exists. Emphasis is placed largely on how each of the characters deal with the mental illness and suicide present in their lives. The fact that they also share a common sexuality, wether it be known or not, is just not seen as any kind of a big deal next to the importance of the other issues; and it’s even seen to be that in these few moments, each character escapes briefly from the traumas of their current situations. It’s not very often that a gay tendency is the best thing to happen in ur day.
- - - FAVOURITE MOVIE MOMENTS - - -
I absolutely love the United States of Tara (don’t we all?), so seeing Toni Collette in that scene where she comes to visit Julianne at home, and she’s got all her Alice on as 50s housewife was incredible. Just made me love her even more. And her breasts?!! O.o! OMG AMAZING
So there’s that scene, the one i mentioned earlier with the opening sequence, and the one other one that i loved was another kind of mind trippy one, where Laura (Julianne) checks into a hotel with her novel ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ and several prescription bottles full of pills. The next few minutes where it flicks between her in the hotel bed, and Virginia Woolf at home deciding what the fate of her novel’s heroine was going to be, was just brilliant film making. It made me slightly out of breath just watching it. Gah.
MOVIE : :D !!!
HOTTNESS OF CAST : 6 fabulous ladies?! Yay ;)
CRY FACTOR : 0 tears
