What is Life made of? Meaningless routines? Regrets? Happiness? Quietness? Peace? Movie "The Hours" is based on life’s of three women of three different generations. All they have in common is despair. Hopelessness. Desperate need to find a meaning to their life’s and hence happiness. Novel "Mrs Dalloway" connects all these three women. One woman an author, one woman who reads this novel and reflects on her own way of living, one woman who is actually living the novel.
Virginia Wolf is the author of the book "Mrs Dalloway" who is suffering from depression, hallucinations. She has failed twice with her suicide attempts. She is advised by doctors to stay in a serene, quite place Richmond away from London. Which to her is death. She prefers violent jolt of city life to eerie suburbs. She has a loving husband who is constantly threatened by her suicidal tendency. To her sister Nessa, Virginia’s life seems perfect and thinks Virginia is very fortunate to live two life’s. One that Virginia is leading and the book that she is writing. Virginia believes that there is certainty in death. Death is the only possible escape for her. This reflects so much in her novel where she is trying to kill one of the characters. When her husband questions why someone has to die, she says "Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It’s contrast"
"You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard."
Laura Brown is a pregnant housewife with a doting husband and a kid. She thinks she has lost her own life in being a wife, a mother. She is very unfulfilled and struggles to cope with a life that is ordained on her. A life without choices. She makes every effort to fit in, yet she is so unhappy and depressed. All this lead to thoughts of killing herself. What happens to her? Does she kill herself? Does she go back to her family and continue to live a life that does not define her? Or does she make a choice after all which she may or may not regret?
"It would be wonderful to say you regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? "
Clarissa Vaughan is the one who is living the novel Mrs Dalloway. A modern-day woman living with her gay partner. Who reassures herself that her life is not trivial by throwing parties and trying to be a good hostess. This is a meaningless routine that she builds to make her otherwise meaningless life worthy. She has an adopted girl child, a good career, a loving partner. But she cannot get over her young love Richard. Richard is an award winning poet, gay, and is suffering from AIDS. Richard and Clarissa share a beautiful relationship. Clarissa regrets her decision of losing her true love, soul-mate, friend Richard. She feels insignificant without Richard.
"Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been"
All of these woman have someone who loves them, who have something to carry on their life’s with. But life is not about the hours that we live isn’t it? It is not those meaningless hours that you spend on routines, years that you spend on trying to hold on a thing which is not you. Life is not the choices we made or not made. Life is about moments. Right there. Right then.
"I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn’t the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then."
This movie may not be a perfect drama, may not help you in finding a meaning to life. May not give you a perspective. But it shows life as is and the rest is left to viewer’s interpretations. Most of the movie is up for your own perspective. This is not a sad story either. There are lot of positive messages through out the movie.
"To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours."
I love the movie for the direction, and brilliant performances by Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Julian Moore. Awards that they got for this movie are well deserved.