Film Excess 8th birthday movie masterpiece: The Hours (2002) - Everything gels in Daldry's phenomenal adaptation

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+ 2nd Best Movie of the Year

 

Three of the world's leading actresses of their day in a wealth of striking, muted pastel colors on a poster for Stephen Daldry's The Hours

In 1923 outside London, author Virginia Woolf has begun writing her book Mrs. Dalloway and walks into a river. In 1950s Los Angeles a housewife attempts to escape her life. And in 2001 in New York a woman just wants to throw a fabulous party for her friend, who is sick with AIDS.

 

The Hours is written by David Hare (Via Dolorosa (2000)), based on the same-titled 1998 novel by Michael Cunningham (Flesh and Blood (1995)), and directed by English master filmmaker Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliott (2000)), whose 2nd feature it is.

Cunningham's complex and unusual novel is an awe-inspiring task to adapt and it is something of a miracle that Daldry here translates it to the big screen with such strength and elegance. It feels superfluous to give praise to individuals in a case such as The Hours, in which everything simply seems to be perfect.

The Hours is laden with the pain of life and beautiful in all aspects.

 

Related posts:

Stephen Daldry: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) or, The Boy Who Lost His Father 

2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2008 in films - according to Film Excess 
The Reader (2008) or, Guilt, Words and Love  

2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 25 mil. $

Box office: 108.8 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 4.35 times its cost)

[The Hours premiered 15 December (New York) and runs 114 minutes. Shooting took place from January - June 2001 in Florida, New York and England, including London. Kidman was paid 7.5 mil. $ for her performance. The film opened #31 to a 338k $ first weekend in 11 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #9 and in 1,010 theaters (different weeks), grossing 41.6 mil. $ (38.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 6.8 mil. $ (6.3 %) and the UK with 6.7 mil. $ (6.2 %). The film was nominated for 9 Oscars, winning for Best Actress (Nicole Kidman (Flirting (1991))). It lost Best Picture to Chicago, Supporting Actor (Ed Harris (The Way Back (2010))) to Chris Cooper in Adaptation., Supporting Actress (Julianne Moore (6 Souls (2010))) to Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago, Director to Roman Polanski for The Pianist, Adapted Screenplay to Ronald Harwood for The Pianist, Costume Design to Chicago, Editing to Chicago and Score (Philip Glass (The Eden Myth (1999))) to Elliot Goldenthal for Frida. It also won 2/11 BAFTA nominations, an AFI award, an award at the Berlin International Film Festival, was nominated for a César award, nominated for a David di Donatello award, won 2/7 Golden Globe nominations, was nominated for a Grammy, won 2 National Board of Review awards and several more honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. Daldry returned with Elton John: Electricity (2005, music video) and Fussballfieber (2006, segment) prior to his theatrical return with The Reader (2008). Kidman returned in Dogville (2003); Moore in Marie and Bruce (2004); and Meryl Streep (It's Complicated (2009)) in an uncredited cameo, 2 TV credits and a short prior to her theatrical return in The Manchurian Candidate (2004). The Hours is certified fresh at 79 % with a 7.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of The Hours?  

Mammoth (2009) or, Modern Life Misery

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Intimacy and depressive shell-shock appearance clash on this dropped-in-space poster for Lukas Moodysson's Mammoth

 

A nurse in New York has her hands in life and death situations at work, while her daughter is taught words by a Filipino nanny/maid who has two sons of her own, who miss her. The father in the New York family is off on a contract-signing job in Thailand.

Mammoth is written and directed by great Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodysson (Show Me Love/Fucking Åmål (1998)). The title refers to a mammoth ivory pen that the man receives in the film as well as a line from one of Moodysson's poetry collections: "Our Savior buried like a Mammoth."

The film starts alright, and one senses quickly that here is an emotional drama with high stakes involved. But the very Swedish family drama, relocated to New York, or so it feels, gets too labored and sharpened in that every story in Mammoth seemingly must move towards misery. At the same time Michelle Williams (Wendy and Lucy (2008)) and Gael García Bernal's (The King (2005)) lead couple, - who seem like the filmmaker's exponents for the competent modern day parents, who still feel lost in the world, (because they lack a resting-place in faith/religion), - are wearying. - Especially Bernal, whose character is thoroughly insufferable in Thailand, where he by turns lectures on (Swedish) equality philosophy, makes promises voraciously as some 16 year-old, gets what he wants and then takes off.

SPOILER The impact of a couple of the tragedies in Mammoth (a boy passes away in the hospital; the nanny/maid's son is raped in the Philippines) is also lessened, because we see them arriving in advance. Moodysson's well-meaning and often well-acted fate-crossing drama can with a bit of harshness be described as misery porn, and it also seems very inspired by Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu's masterpiece Babel (2006), though it (also) lacks that film's striking visuals. Mammoth is overrated.

Moodyson presents the film here in a 2-minute clip

Cost: 10 mil. $

Box office: 2 mil. $

= Box office disaster (returned 0.2 times its cost)

[Mammoth premiered 19 January (Stockholm, Sweden) and runs 125 minutes. Shooting took place in Thailand, the Philippines, New York and Sweden from November 2007 - ?. Williams learned that her fiancee, star actor Heath Ledger had passed away in his sleep while filming Mammoth. The film opened #83 to a 4k $ first weekend in 1 theater in North America, its only release in the country, where it grossed just 9k $ (0.5 % of the total gross). The 3 biggest markets were Sweden with 1.5 mil. $ (75 %), Spain with 182k $ (9.1 %) and Finland with 113k $ (5.7 %). The film won a Guldbagge (Sweden's Oscar). Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to 2 notches higher than this one. Moodysson returned with We Are the Best!/Vi Är Bäst! (2013). Bernal returned in The Limits of Control (2009); Williams in Blue Valentine (2010). Mammoth is rotten at 45 % with a 5.18/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Mammoth?

The Burning Plain (2008) - Powerful actresses elevate Arriaga's flawed debut

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Three generations of graceful women stars collide on this drama-indicating poster for Guillermo Arriaga's The Burning Plain

A young woman learns that her mother is cheating on her new husband. A middle-aged woman head-waitress has sex with random men and is about to meet a consequence of her past ...

The Burning Plain is the debut for writer-director Guillermo Arriaga (21 Grams (2003), writer). 
In the first story, set in New Mexico, Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone (2010)) is good as the distraught daughter, and Kim Basinger (The Informers (2008)) is excellent as the wife and mother, who has re-experienced joy and intimacy with warm Joaquim de Almeida (Our Brand Is Crisis (2015)). And Charlize Theron (Dark Places (2015)) is fascinating in the other story, which takes place up North, in Oregon.
Regrettably, it takes an awful long time before the connection between the two story planes became apparent to me, and then there's the issue of the film's tone, which is permanently set far beneath the floor-boards. unflinchingly dour. The Burning Plain is simply too plain.
SPOILER Theron is plagued at all times, and when her abandoned daughter enters the story, their interaction just isn't very natural, and the ending, in which it is indicated that Theron will now take part in the girl's life, therefore doesn't really settle convincingly.
Arriaga's only feature to date is an advanced bowl of tristesse.

Related posts:
 
Guillermo Arriaga: Babel (2006) or, Everyone's Connected (writer)
21 Grams (2003) or, Hardcore Life (writer) 
Amores Perros (2000) or, People - Bad/Dogs - Good (writer)

Theron gives an interview about her work on the film here. The video has Spanish subtitles

Cost: 20 mil. $
Box office: 5.6 mil. $
= Mega-flop
[The Burning Plain premiered 29 August (Venice Film Festival, Italy) and runs 107 minutes. Shooting took place in New Mexico, Oregon, including Portland, and in Texas from November - December 2007. The film opened #46 to a small 58k $ first weekend in 21 theaters in North America, where it never conquered better numbers and only grossed 200k $ (3.6 % of the total gross). The 3 biggest markets were Italy with 1.8 mil. $ (32.1 %), Spain with 1 mil. $ (17.9 %) and France with 870k $ (15.5 %). The film won Lawrence an award in Venice. Arriaga has retreated from features since The Burning Plain and has instead worked on several short films, both as writer and director. Theron returned in The Road (2009); Basinger in While She Was Out (2008) and Lawrence in The Bill Engvall Show (2007-09) and theatrically in Winter's Bone (2010), her breakthrough. The Burning Plain is rotten at 36 % with a 4.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Burning Plain?

Babel (2006) or, Every One Is Connected

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Striking images lined with the title and ultra-simple tagline ('Listen') makes up this poster for Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu's Babel

When a couple of Moroccan boys accidentally shoot an American tourist, it starts an avalanche of events on different continents.

 

Babel is written by Guillermo Arriaga (En Defensa Propia (2015, short)) and directed by Mexican master filmmaker Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu (Amores Perros (2000)), whose 3rd feature it is. It is the 3rd and last film in Arriaga and Iñárritu's Death trilogy, also comprising Amores Perros and 21 Grams (2003).
Babel is a unique drawing of the times we live in; the tragedies, the hope and the people around the world, mostly seen as trying to do the right thing. Each working in their own fragment of the wildly divergent world, which is still being held together by some universal instincts and values that we seemingly all share as human beings. Babel lets us into the complexity of our world in the form of an emotionally wild sensual bombardment that took most audiences aback in cinemas the world over in 2006.
It is inventively carried out visually, (cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (Barbie (2023))), story-wise and musically, (Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain (2005)) score is grand.) The film is extremely powerful, due, of course, in equal measure to the tremendous acting performances: Brad Pitt (Fight Club (1999)) gives one of his career's best performances, a gripping portrayal of desperation and grief. Adriana Barraza (Drag Me to Hell (2009)) plays the Mexican sitter with every ounce of her being.

 

Related posts:

 

Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu: The day after the day after ... the Oscars 2016 

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]  

The Revenant (2015) - Nature outdoes itself in Iñárritu's showy, solemn macho-spectacle 

The day after the day after... The Oscars 2015
Birdman (2014) - Iñárritu's clever, but cold showbusiness dramedy 

Biutiful (2010) - Sad globalization stories from Iñárritu 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Top 10: Best 'box office success' movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

21 Grams (2003) or, Hardcore Life 

Love Is a Bitch/Amores Perros (2000) or, People = Bad, Dogs = Good

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 135.3 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 5.41 times its cost)

[Babel premiered 23 May (Cannes Film Festival, main competition) and runs 143 minutes. Shooting took place from May - December 2005 in Japan, including in Tokyo, Morocco, including in Casablanca, Mexico and in San Diego, California. Arriaga and Iñárritu fell out prior to the film's premiere; the former was saying that they were co-authors of the trilogy, while the latter stressed that he was the sole auteur behind the films, and consequently banned Arriaga from attending the film's Cannes premiere. The film opened #24 to a 389k $ first weekend in 7 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #6 and in 1,251 theaters, grossing 34.3 mil. $ (25.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 14.9 mil. $ (11 %) and Spain with 13.9 mil. $ (10.3 %). The film was nominated for 6 Oscars (7 nominations), winning for Best Score. It lost Best Picture to The Departed, Supporting Actress (Rinko Kikuchi (Westworld (2018, TV-series)), Barraza) to Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls, Director to Martin Scorsese for The Departed, Original Screenplay to Michael Arndt for Little Miss Sunshine and Editing to The Departed. It won 1/7 BAFTA nominations, 3 prizes in Cannes, was nominated for a César award, won a David di Donatello award, won 1/7 Golden Globe nominations, was nominated for a Grammy and won 2 National Board of Review awards and an AFI award, among many other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. It additionally made in excess of 31.4 mil. $ on the North-American home video market alone. Iñárritu returned with To Each His Own Cinema (2007, segment) and theatrically himself alone with Biutiful (2010). Pitt returned in Ocean's Thirteen (2007); Cate Blanchett (Hanna (2011)) in The Good German (2006); and Gael García Bernal (Mozart in the Jungle (2014-18)) in Déficit (2007). Babel is fresh at 69 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Babel?

Tid til Forandring (2004) - Everyone's wrong and Svendsen doesn't have ANY answers

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The film's central characters stand around in the bottom of this sorry DVD cover scan of the poster for Lotte Svendsen's Tid til Forandring

Danish director Lotte Svendsen's (Royal Blues (1997))  third feature is a hysterically funny black comedy about four circles of people whose lives intersect over the course of a few days. Here's a short presentation:

 
Inge quits her job and puts down her dog, when she realizes she needs to take charge over her own life. Her psychologist Erik is responsible for that change, but in his own life, he struggles with alcohol addiction and a wife who is obsessed with their home. One day, he meets Svend, an old friend who should have been dead a decade ago from a terminal illness, but who is instead busy putting up illegal posters for his socialist debate night. Nearby lives the middle-aged, selfish loner, Jens, who props up an old friend as a 'handicapped brother' in order to get sympathy sex with a blonde model from the area.

 
That area, by the way, is 2900 Hellerup, as rock star/actor Peter Belli (Koko-di Koko-da (2019)) reminds Jens twice in an excellent supporting role. And the portrayal of Denmark's most exclusive zip code is (predictably) not flattering.
But the script is amazingly funny; Svendsen co-wrote it with her writing partner Elith Nulle Nykjær (Bamses Billedbog (1989, TV-series)). One bizarre, delicate scene follows the next, and the humor of the piece is as Danish as pastry, so non-Danes are sure not to enjoy it as much. But it certainly should prove interesting.
All of the actors give fine performances in Svendsen's confident direction, although Louise Mieritz (Ditte & Louise (2018)) as a mentally challenged woman is miscast, (and if Svendsen had really meant her criticism of people's unwillingness to get involved with handicapped and the mentally deficient, why didn't she herself get involved by casting one in this part, including them in her own industry so to speak?)
This debacle set aside, I enjoyed watching Waage Sandø (Krummernes Jul (1996, TV-series)) in particular as a red wine imbibing upper class shrink, and Claus Ryskjær (Kampen om den Røde Ko (1987)), Helle Dolleris (Zoomerne (2009)), Dan Zahle (The Rain (2019, TV-series)) as Jens the egomaniac who treats a woman like she's a delicate alien intelligence, and Anne Sofie Espersen (Live fra Bremen (2012-13)) as said woman. Also Kirsten Lehfeldt (Kongeriget (1998-02)) and the two women friends that follows her around are excellent, portraying, clearly, the characters that Svendsen likes the least. In nice supporting roles are also Frank Hvam (Klovn Forever/Clown Forever (2015)) and Jens Andersen (Breeder (2020)).
The film is an excellent presentation of how a Danish satirical dramedy gets its many laughs with apparent ease; through a variety of flawed, unwitting characters interacting.

Some audiences might begin to turn in their seats or twitch their index finger above the stop button, when the movie enters its third act, and it becomes clear that more than one of its main characters are heading into the abyss, (though they still are darkly comedic abysses.)
My main inference with the film is linked to Svendsen's double standard morals in the disabled issue: Normally, it would be silly to hold such things against a director, but in Svendsen's case, her film is so indignant and essentially a humorous protest film, (the Danish title literally translates to 'time for change'.) In this case, where she blames most all of her characters for their own miserable lives, and in the meantime pulls a plug on self realization thinking and people's basic capabilities for change, something like that has to be held against the film.
Svendsen clearly has the least antipathy, or rather the most sympathy (?), with the lower class in the film, as has also been apparent in her earlier films, Royal Blues (1997) and Bornholms Stemme (1999). Personally, I would have liked the film perhaps even more, if the upper class had held some of the answers, and the lower class instead had been depicted as stupid and degraded, because this would have been a novelty in Danish films The lower class hero is the standard, and a status quo in this case doesn't earn extra points.
The problem with Svendsen's story is that it leaves no answers behind, or even hints of answers, but just shakes in the wind with indignant resentment of our Danish ways, and then leaves us, - and that is too easy. And had Tid til Forandring not made me laugh as many times as it did, I would have slashed a heart from its review for this hypocrisy. 





 

Svendsen later was appointed film consultant in the Danish Film Institute and here talks about that job

Cost: Unknown, but likely at least 5 mil. DKK, approximately 0.81 mil. $

Box office: Around 2.9 mil. DKK, approximately 0.47 mil. $

=  Uncertain but likely a huge flop (projected return of around 0.48 times its cost)

[Tid til Forandring was released 13 August (Denmark) and runs 94 minutes. Shooting took place in Denmark, including Copenhagen. The film only sold 38,059 tickets in Denmark, its only market with a general release, coming to 2.9 mil. DKK at a ticket prize of 77 DKK. Svendsen returned with Max (2007, TV-series) and theatrically with Max Pinlig/Max Embarrasing (2008). Dolleris returned in Oskar & Josefine (2005); Sandø in Krummerne - Så Er Det Jul Igen (2006) and Lehfeldt in Solkongen (2005). 173 IMDb users have given Tid til Forandring a 5.3/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of Tid til Forandring?