The Hours Movie:  Artistic Details

1.  Ed Harris saying "I love you."  Harris  kills himself to free Meryl Streep of her "Mrs. Dalloway" tendencies.  He makes a conscious choice here.  But as a boy, where he frees himself from his mother, he had no choice--the mother left.  Before each occurs, Harris says, "I love you."

2.  The female to female kissing scenes:  After each female lead does this, the movie shows that she chooses life, no matter how irrational, convoluted, or selfish.  

3.  The use of flowers, cutting from one woman's life to the other.  This is also used with the women lying on their beds in deep thought.  There is also one where the door is opened in one woman's time period and then the door continues to be opened in another woman's time period.  This kind of cutting is used in movies often, where an image from one scene is repeated in another scene, but in this movie, it works great because it's a wonderful transition from one woman's life to the other.

4.  The scene of Nicole Kidman, Woolf, looking at the dead bird.  It is obvious Woolf has thoughts of dying.

5.  The scene where Julianne Moore is asleep on the hotel bed dreaming of water engulfing her.  This repeats the scene at the beginning where Woolf commits suicide by drowning herself in the river.  Thus, Moore is also contemplating suicide.  She senses her present life as a kind of "death," so she leaves.

6.  Harris calling Meryl Streep's character as "Mrs. Dalloway" who is always giving parties to hide her true self.  In Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway is always giving parties.  She marries a member of Parliament after saying "no" to a man who reveals his love for her.  Because she says no, he runs off and "ruins" his life in India.  Basically, Mrs. Dalloway's life is shown as "bland."

7.  The dialogue where Woolf says the poet and visionary dies.  What happens next is Harris killing himself by making himself fall out the window.

8.  Scene where Moore is shown lying on the bed by herself and the scene where Streep and her daughter are lying on the bed talking about that brief moment of true happiness.  These two contrast the characters of these two, different women.  Moore is alone, not sharing her need for life with her son.  Streep is with her daughter sharing these feelings.  So, Streep, who embodies the "modern woman," is the best balance of the three characters.  She is independent, has a job, has a daughter and has a female lover.  The latter is non-traditional and thus, is challenging the notion of same-gender relationships.  But of all the three women, Streep's character is the most hopeful.

There are many, more artistic details in The Hours with further scrutiny, but these stood out.

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