The Hours (2002)

PG-13 for suicide.  While the topic of suicide is throughout the piece, including seeing two separate people commit suicide, the rest of the content is almost making up for the fact that there isn't much offensive material in this.  If one truly wanted to be bothered by the content, there are discussions that imply sexuality, but nothing actually sexual happens on screen.  But the suicide thing isn't to be ignored.  I'm actually kind of floored that The Hours managed to avoid an R-rating.

DIRECTOR: Stephen Daldry

Oh Lord.  I'm writing on an empty tank.  I want to collapse and run away from the world, which is appropriate when writing about Virginia Woolf.  I've always had a hard time with Virginia Woolf.  Virginia Woolf is...difficult.  When people praise her works, it's not that I'm coming from a place of disrespect.  I am always in awe of how her work challenges me.  But I also have a hard time distancing elements of Woolf from my own personal moral philosophies and upbringing.

It's a challenge, let me tell you. In the back of my head, I'm struggling with the following phrase: "If you dislike Woolf and similar feminist novels, you cannot be a feminist."  To that, I don't have much retort.  There are waves and splinter philosophies of feminism.  To drop a specific branch of feminism to which I ascribe, I would be lacking. It's just that Woolf and similar writers always frustrated me.  I understand the goal. I empathize and support the goal.  However, there's something about Woolf that always seems to glorify suicide.  Part of what is leading me to that result is the outcome of history.  Woolf, as shown in the opening scene of The Hours, kills herself.  Like Sylvia Plath, it's part of her mystique.  Can I really say that is something that Woolf is about when she's still contextually within her own history?  I don't know.  Woolf was suicidal for an unfortunate amount of her life.  She dealt with mental illness and ultimately succumbed to that mental illness. But part of me wants to hold Woolf to the fire when it comes to suicide.  It's not that I'm unsympathetic.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  I'm overly-sympathetic.  It's just that we see these thoughts in the followers of Woolf.  

Lord knows I have been frustrated with Kate Chopin's The Awakening.  I keep being told that it is a work of brilliance and yet the idea of abandoning one's life and commitments always gets under my skin.  I will never know what it truly means to be a woman.  I may indulge traditionally feminine traits.  I may consider myself an ally.  But I'll never know enough of what it means to be a woman to speak from a place of authority.  But these stories are more depressing and despondent than they should be.  With The Awakening, Monsieur Pontellier definitely sucks.  And a lot of it has to do with the historical context, but his suckiness is never really reflected back at him.  From an outside perspective, we see these toxic elements and we beg him not to indulge these behavioral choices.  But Mrs. Pontellier?  She rarely vocalizes her frustrations with mental illness and the burdens of being a mother.  When she abandons her family and eventually kills herself, any critical analysis may consider the question, "Why did she do that?" From Mr. Pontellier's perspective, this all just seemed so random and unhinged.  The same kind of holds true for Woolf and me.

There's something glamorous about mental illness in feminism.  While Woolf's suicide has been analyzed and deconstructed numerous times, the other stories in The Hours also harken to a need to escape the burdens of family.  Laura goes to a hotel to kill herself by overdose.  Richard, a gay man, kills himself in a stunning display of mania.  (If I had the patience or time, I wouldn't make the quick connection between Richard's homosexuality and feminism.) Clarissa wants to flee the confines of a restricted marriage and parenthood.  That need to flee is overwhelming.  But I wonder if The Hours takes the same ignorant perspective on mental illness that I do.  I can't deny that The Hours is smart.  It worships at the altar of Virginia Woolf.  The portrayal of the character and her need to die is never directly criticized.  But my frustration with the feminine plight is the fallout that comes in the unwritten epilogue.  It bothers the heck out of me what comes out of the glorified suicide.  And maybe the film is a bit critical of that.

Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway is the Macguffin of the story.  It's almost this cursed object, similar to the Ark of the Covenant.  It's something of great beauty, but it ultimately poisons the beholder.  Laura is reading the book and seems sad a lot.  I kind of get where the book might appeal to her.  She feels smothered by this relationship to a dumpy husband, played by John C. Reilly.  Poor John C. Reilly.  He's the dumpy husband who can't bring his wife happiness. From all evidence, Dan is trying to be the supportive husband.  He doesn't criticize his wife.  He buys flowers for her, unlike Mrs. Dalloway's wayward spouse.  It's even his birthday.  He has low expectations which he never verbalizes.  Yet, Laura has an almost hatred for his attempts at perfection.  She doesn't express that outwardly, but she gives the vibes that she can never live up to the expectations of society.  She's criticized for never being able to bake a cake.  But she does these small, almost silent cries of help.  She romantically kisses her neighbor, who doesn't view that as something inappropriate.  (I know that there are different personalities than me, but I can promise you that I've never been so overwhelmed by someone other than my wife that I have to kiss them.)  We are absolutely meant to sympathize with this lonely housewife.  But look how that directly correlates to Richard.

Richard commits suicide.  Laura never kills herself (despite the absolutely shameless mislead), but she leaves him.  There's this binary answer that the story provides that implies that troubled women have two choices: commit suicide or abandon your family.  Chopin's Awakening merges those two options.  But Richard's life is dictated by his mother's leaving.  When Laura returns upon Richard's death, there is a pall of shame cast over her.  It's not absolute.  It's there, but Claire Daines treats her with dignity and understanding.  Clarissa probably sympathizes with Laura's decision to leave her child, who worshipped her.  Is there poison in worship, I wonder?  Both Dan and her child worshipped Laura and she hated them for that.  Maybe not hated, but held it against them.  Virginia verbally assaults her husband for trying to keep her alive.  It's a form of worship and we are punished for trying to keep our gods alive.  But yet, from any other perspective, we would see these family members bending over backwards to protect a loved one as noble.

It's just this big muddied message and I kind of like it more than I thought I would.  But I also feel like The Hours stoops itself to my stupid level.  It does feel like it doesn't forgive women for leaving or for committing suicide.  There are repercussions.  This leads me to my weird final thought.  Is the message muddied because it is made entirely by men?  The novel was written by a man.  The screenplay was written by a man.  It was directed by a man.  It starred women.  What an odd approach to something that should have a degree of nuance.  Of course I'm going to applaud the discussion of fallout because that casts judgment upon these women for taking what would be considered a cowards way out for a man.  I've been avoiding saying that because it's a bit of "whataboutism", but it's on my mind.  These women needed mental help.  And the film's ultimate message should be that the 1920s and the 1950s needed to have proper mental health services.  But they didn't.  But 2002 did have proper mental health services.  And yet, the cycle continues.  It's dark and it's brooding and it feels like it was made by dudes.

So I liked it, but I almost feel like I wasn't supposed to.  Is the glorification of Virginia Woolf a condemnation of her as well?  It's well acted (for the most part) and it's well made.  But it isn't the complex piece that some people make it out to be.  I think it has the problem of wanting to play both sides of the argument.  But that's okay, because that's what I do.