The Hours review

"I still have to face the hours, the hours after the parties," says Richard (Ed Harris) to his ex-lover Clarissa (Meryl Streep) of his lonely and failing battle with AIDS. Death, more specifically suicide, is the central theme of The Hours, a sombre and dignified tale of three women from different times linked by their unifying struggle with life and their connection to the novel Mrs Dalloway. Under the directorship of Stephen Daldry, out to prove he's capable of handling more weighty fare than Billy Elliot, The Hours teeters precariously at times on the edge of being unduly earnest, but is ultimately held in check by stirring performances from its illustrious cast.

. David Hare's adaptation of Michael Cunningham's Pullitzer Prize winning book begins with Mrs Dalloway's author, Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman), in 1923 as she agonises over the writing of the story of a politician's wife whose outward appearance of composure belies an inner battle with her own sanity and sexuality. Mrs Dalloway not only parallels Woolf's life as she struggles with her own bisexuality and mental illness, but also echoes elements in the lives of the other two women whose stories are intercut with Woolf's before finally being linked in the moving finale.

Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) appears the quintessential American 50's housewife. But like the title character of the book she treasures, outward appearances are deceiving. Her loveless marriage to Dan (John C. Reilly) has spawned the sensitive and troubled young Ritchie, while an impromptu kiss with a friend (an excellent Toni Collette) hints at suppressed tendencies. Nearly half a century later Clarissa Vaughan is living in New York with her partner (Allison Janney). She looks after her daughter (Claire Danes) and the dying Richard, a writer whose latest novel thinly disguises their relationship, and who often refers to Clarissa as Mrs Dalloway.

By taking three different women from three different eras all trying to cope with similar problems, The Hours shows eloquently and effectively that although some plights remain timeless, changing social conventions have affected their impact. Streep, Moore and an almost unrecognisable Kidman convey in distinctive ways the torment and sadness that overwhelm their characters. Augmented by strong supporting performances from Stephen Dillane as Woolf's husband, Miranda Richardson as her sister and John C. Reilly, along with Philip Glass's anxious score, The Hours expresses with a poetic assuredness Woolf's words, "you can not find peace by avoiding life."