Even though there are 24 hours each and every day, time appears to fly as if it had gone astray.  People complain that they do not have enough time to enjoy life, and that they do not like wasting time.  Benjamin Franklin probably said it best when he said, “Do not squander time.  That is the stuff life is made of.”  Writing can be a time consuming task, but great prose can inspire cinematic art that both teach audiences about the beauty of reality.  Therefore, Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel The Hours and its subsequent film adaptation can educate readers and viewers about how to make the most of their time while also not taking their lives for granted.

*Spoiler Alert!*

Starring Nicole Kidman in an Oscar-winning role as Virginia Woolf, Julianne Moore in a nominated supporting role, and the incomparable Meryl Streep, this trio vividly bring Michael Cunningham’s characters to life as three different women who share challenges with how they use their time.  That is because each story from the three different eras (the 1920s, the 1950s, and the early 2000s) reveal how there are universal struggles shared amongst women even though change is constant and inevitable. 

Key scenes from each historical time period ultimately reveal the universal and enigmatic quality of time itself regardless of the differences that come about through the passage of time.  For example, in this scene above, Virginia Woolf struggles to cope with mental illness before tragically committing suicide in 1941 via drowning.  Specifically, she writes a letter to her husband, Leonard, indicating that they could not be together any longer.  Nicole Kidman’s portrayal of this tortured writer reveals the emotional depth and despair of Virginia Woolf that both honors the famed writer historically and Michael Cunningham’s vision of her figuratively.  In the end, Nicole Kidman’s performance reveals the subtle nuances into the mind of one of the greatest writers of all time.

The theme of death and suicide is a key component in both the film adaptation and the original novel.  Virginia Woolf’s suicide is based on a real-life occurrence, and Virginia Woolf did, in fact, suffer from mental illness that led to her own destruction.  The film highlights Woolf’s descent into madness because she feels like she is “dying in this town” while at a train station with Leonard.  He shouts, “You have an obligation to your own sanity,” and then Woolf replies, “I am attended by doctors!  Everywhere I am attended by doctors who inform me of my own interest!” 

Part of the brilliance of Nicole Kidman’s performance is that she captures the fragile and complex thought processes within the author’s mind, and reveals how Woolf struggles to cope with reality.  Virginia Woolf (in real life) is one of the pioneering women authors to write about the realism that defines twentieth-century literature because of her drastic departure from romanticism both in literary history and her own psychological down-spiral towards insanity.

In the sequences taking place in the 1950s, Julianne Moore plays Mrs. Brown, a young mother struggling to deal with reality within the stereotypically “happy days” of American history.  Mrs. Brown has a son named Richie, and the son has trouble establishing himself as an artist when he becomes an adult. That is part of the reason why struggles with coping with reality while also being crippled during the scenes that he shares with Clarissa (Meryl Streep) in the scenes in the early 2000s.  Richie is essentially the character that links the 1950s generation to the modern American generation of the twenty-first century when Richie has aged significantly.

One of the key scenes is when Richie commits suicide.  Richard had trouble coping with his AIDS illness, and feels lost and alone because of his disability.  He chooses death because he could not bear the pain of life itself. He even repeats the word “hours” over and over again in earlier parts of the film, which suggests that each agonizing hour he has to endure is not worth living at all.  He chooses death as the ultimate escape simply because he could not accept reality.

A plot twist happens that reveals the bridging of generational gaps.  Clarissa (played by Meryl Streep) is essentially a “modern” version of Clarissa (the main protagonist) from Virginia Woolf’s classic novel Mrs. Dalloway.  During a meeting with Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Brown says, “I chose life!”  The brief monologue that Julianne Moore delivers reveals how choices do matter in life, and that practically everything in life is merely a matter of selection.  Virginia Woolf’s closing remarks at the very end reiterate the words of Mrs. Brown because both of these women know life for what it is, and more importantly, love life for what it is.  Michael Cunningham’s novel, and David Hare’s Oscar-nominated screenplay, hints at the idea that people can choose to live, love, and lose, but that is up to their own personal discretion.  

The Hours is much more than a work of literary fiction.  It is a profound examination about art, creative expression, and making the most of one’s time.  Maybe people who say they do not have enough time should question what they do with their hours.  People wake up, do things, and sleep. It just depends on what people do with their time that ultimately defines their character.