The Screening Room

The Hours (2002)

Date of first viewing: Monday, January 13, 2003

Location: Lowe's Metreon Theater
and also Monday January 20, 2003 at 1000 Van Ness

The first time I saw this movie, I wept the entire way through. I think I had just seen my therapist. Plus I had just started having cramps. After the movie ended, I headed for the ladies' room, locked myself in a stall, and sobbed. There were no thoughts in my head. There was no analysis of the film or attempts to relate it to my own life in a rational way. Just this physical, aching grief.

The next day I couldn't remember a thing about the movie. People asked me if it was good, and I honestly didn't know. My reaction had been so intensely personal that I just could not deconstruct the film with any objectivity. So I had to see it again. And you know what? I think this movie is almost flawless. The music, acting, plot structure, colors, and just... I don't know. I'm not a film critic. I don't have the language. And I think trying to desribe it in any more detail would be ridiculous. Jonathan Safran Foer, describing writing his book, Everything Is Illuminated, said that if he could have summed up what he wanted to say in a few words, he wouldn't have written the book. Like Foer's book,
The Hours is exactly as long as it needs to be and has exactly the structure it needs to have. I can't summarize it.

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