The Hours

So far, I must say, The Hours is bizarre. The first thing I thought as I began contemplating this movie is that parts of other characters are present in ones with other names. I apologize for the awkwardness of that sentence, but I really don’t know how else to phrase it. First of all, Richard seems to be more a picture of Septimus than Richard Dalloway, and Clarissa Vaughn can be seen as Rezia, delighting in Richard when he is acting sane, getting upset when he speaks of suicide. I don’t understand why these characters would possess the names of Clarissa and Richard because it really threw me off; I really couldn’t see the parallels between Richard and Septimus when I first started watching the movie. Although, the characters of Richard and Clarissa are likely amalgamations of their namesakes and Lucrezia and Septimus. I mean, the Clarissa of the movie is throwing a party and bought flowers, if we’re looking at the obvious. Also, Richard’s former lover is quite the Peter, showing up to an unhappy woman with the news that he has a great new life with a great new lover in a far away place. I suspect later on we will see just how unsure of his happiness he is. I do enjoy the fact that Clarissa ended up with Sally instead of Richard, which could be the set up for interesting things later on in the film. Also the fact that Richard ends up with a character I think is a version of Peter is also entertaining, as in the book they are polar opposites, although they still presumably get along.

The one major qualm with the movie that I possess right now is the woman from the 50s. She is reading Mrs. Dalloway (and I guess she must not be very far in), yet she seems pretty willing to kill herself. She is very much like Clarissa in that she seems to have an ideal life but she cannot enjoy it. However (and here I am presuming that after dropping off her son, she is planning to kill herself), she seems so willing to take her own life. She seems to have no love for life, which is so very different from Clarissa. Clarissa balks at the thought of taking her own life. She’s unhappy, she thinks she might have chosen the wrong life, but she still has the strength to go on and to enjoy parts of it. If the woman of the movie is supposed to be a more modern version of Clarissa, so far, I am not impressed.