Well-acted ‘Hours’ worth the time; ‘Guy’ wastes its time

‘The Hours’ takes on difficult issues

Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Not Michael Cunningham, whose 1998

Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Hours” intertwines the lives of

three women separated by generations and geography, but touched by

Virginia Woolf’s novel “Mrs. Dalloway.”

Not screenwriter David Hare or director Stephen Daldry, who

together took on Cunningham’s distinctly literary novel that no one

imagined could be turned into a movie and created an engaging,

provocative and intelligent film.

And certainly not Nicole Kidman, who plays real-life author

Virginia Woolf in the film with such conviction that she’s garnered a

Golden Globe and now an Academy Award nomination for her powerful

performance.

In “The Hours,” as Woolf (Kidman) is writing her revolutionary

novel and struggling with mental illness, the demure, almost

invisible Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), a 1950s L.A. housewife, is

reading the finished novel and battling her miscast matriarchal role.

Fifty years later, Manhattan book editor Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl

Streep) is arranging a party for her ex-lover, now dying of AIDS, who

has nicknamed her “Mrs. Dalloway.”

From the very beginning, intricate interweaving of subtle and

parallel connections between the three storylines -- flowers placed

simultaneously in vases -- capture the viewers curiosity and

emphasize the similarities among the three women.

As Virginia Woolf writes her first sentence, “Mrs. Dalloway said

she would buy the flowers herself,” Clarissa Vaughan avows that she

too will buy the flowers herself. So when Woolf exclaims “I am living

a life I have no wish to live. How did this happen?” we realize that

each woman touched by the novel will reexamine her life’s

significance.

As in Woolf’s novel, in which a single day in June is spent with

Clarissa Dalloway, a single day is spent with the film’s three main

characters. Hour by hour, we learn more about each woman’s life:

Woolf’s fight against inner voices; Brown’s feelings of inadequacy as

a mother; and Vaughan’s valiant effort as a weary caretaker.

Hour by hour, the turmoil hidden beneath the calm surface is

revealed.

And as the hours pass, we begin to understand what Woolf and

Cunningham, as authors, tried to convey in their novels: to find

beauty and poetry in each and every day.

Magnificently written and acted, “The Hours” tackles difficult

themes such as elusive emotions, feminism and suicidal depression

with respect and restraint, which allows the audience to reflect long

after the credits have rolled.

* JULIE LOWRANCE is a Costa Mesa resident who works at a Newport

Beach overnight aircraft advertising agency.

Talent in ‘How to Lose a Guy’ wastes effort

“How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” is a cute title and, as the movie

progresses, it does exactly that -- it loses the guy along with the

rest of the audience.

Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson) works for fashion magazine

“Composure” as their “How To” girl. She wants more literary freedom

to pick her subjects and suggests to her editor, Lana (Bebe

Neuwirth), during a staff meeting that she would like a subject with

more substance.

With help from the rest of the staff, they fashion a bet that if

she can attract a guy and then cause him to dump her within 10 days

(she’ll use the behavior her friend uses to inadvertently drive men

away), Andie can have some latitude with picking her assignments and

she will accomplish three things: Have her article for this month,

display to her friend how not to drive men away and earn herself a

promotion. The guy must be at the party tonight so that all of them

can select him.

On the opposite team, we have Ben (Matthew McConaughey). This is

Ben’s big introduction into this muddle. Ben works for an advertising

agency whose leader (Robert Klein) will assign a huge diamond account

based on the outcome of a bet between Ben, a motorcycle-riding,

raconteur whose modus operandi is a one-night stand, and two

beautiful co-workers, Spears and Green (Michael Michele and Sharon

Harlow). The bet is that Ben must meet a woman for the first time at

tonight’s party and court her for 10 days, and she will fall in love

with him. By Sunday, 10 days from today, Ben will show up at the

diamond extravaganza with her on his arm.

Possibly, there is a way to make this nonsense amusing, but it

presents itself as a running example of basically funny vignettes so

outlandish that the humor is in the premise -- not the execution.

Some of the pranks that are designed to drive a man away are not

believable. Would a guy, at the end of the fourth quarter of a

championship basketball game, with the score depending on a free

throw, go get his girlfriend a Coke? How about when he takes it back,

it’s the wrong kind and he has to do it all over again? Nope, me

neither. How about letting her have a key she filched from the

manager? No? Not likely. There are a few more equally incredulous

stunts, but they are done deftly and are very funny.

The thing is, these are talented people with a good strong

supporting cast and they have made a movie that demeans their talent

and leaves me questioning their ability to choose a vehicle. Or maybe

it’s written into their contract. Anyway, how bad can it be with all

that beauty and talent?

* JOAN ANDRE is a Newport Beach resident who does a lot of

volunteer work.