REVIEW BY STEVE RAMOS

Claire Danes (left) and Meryl Streep are mother and daughter in the sprawling melodrama, The Hours.

No other film can match the pedigree behind director Stephen Daldry's literary-minded, era-jumping melodrama, The Hours. At first glance, The Hours looks to be the sparkling diamond among this year's class of high-end, highbrow, Oscar hopefuls. The truth of the matter is something altogether different. Midway into Daldry's lush jewel box of a movie, past a twinkling handful of flashbacks and foreshadowers, it's clear that Daldry's sprawling drama is as flawed as its prime cinematic peers and Oscar competitors, Gangs of New York, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Chicago. In fact, what's most interesting about The Hours is that its best bits frequently have little to do with its marquee players. Make no mistake: The Hours is an emotionally rich, appropriately complex, heartbreaking melodrama. But who we have to thank for its honest spirit might surprise you.

The Hours' swerving plot, a trio of interconnected stories, is dutifully adapted from Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1998 novel. The film begins in 1923 England, where iconic novelist Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman, complete with a bent, putty nose, stringy hair and dishwater complexion) battles depression to finish her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. In Cunningham's version of history, Woolf awakens from a dream and writes down the sentence that begins her novel: "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."

These very words inspire modern-day Manhattan literary editor Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) to head to a local florist in preparation for hosting a lavish party for a gravely ill friend. Mrs. Dalloway is also the book that's gripping the attention of Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), an unhappy housewife in 1950s Los Angeles who wants out of her suburban tract-house existence.

For Daldry, The Hours proves to be a challenging follow-up to his last film, the acclaimed coming-of-age musical Billy Elliot. Veteran playwright and screenwriter David Hare -- whose credits include the plays Plenty (1978) and The Judas Kiss (1998), and the scripts Weatherby (1985), Strapless (1989) and Damage (1992) -- rearranges Cunningham's novel into an intricate, but comprehensible puzzle. Composer Philip Glass provides a mesmerizing score. Ann Roth's beautiful mix of costumes, Maria Djurkovic's dead-perfect production design and Seamus McGarvey's artful cinematography provide The Hours with ample polish. The Hours brims with dazzling details.

Most of the attention surrounding The Hours is directed at its trio of acting powerhouses. Shockingly, its main setback revolves around its mixed, lead performances. As the maniacal Woolf, Kidman deserves credit for playing dress-up with such verve. She dutifully conceals her pretty face and lithe figure under stringy hair, formless smocks and a pouting expression. Kidman looks astoundingly homely, an achievement in itself.

By comparison, her performance is little more than satisfactory. Stephen Dillane makes a bigger impact as Woolf's twittery husband Leonard. Kidman's best scene is when Woolf begs her sister, Vanessa Bell (Miranda Richardson), not to end her brief visit. The heartfelt poignancy in the scene has more to do with Richardson's domineering presence than Kidman's putty nose and solemn demeanor.

Moore is a whispery facsimile of a retro suburban housewife, but her internal unhappiness, is, well, kept too hidden. Moore also plays an unhappy, 1950s housewife, in Todd Haynes' period melodrama, Far From Heaven; Haynes gets the better performance from Moore. In The Hours, she fades into her cinched dresses and curls, allowing John C. Reilly, who plays her oblivious husband, to take command of their scenes together. Still, Moore comes close to redeeming herself with a climactic monologue where she looks back on her suburban housewife days with hard-hitting awareness.

Meryl Streep gives the best, most lifelike performance of the film's three women. She plays things naturally. For Streep, who's known for her variety of accents and chameleon-like appearances, it's a welcome surprise.

Throughout most of their scenes, Moore and Kidman come off as if they're playing dress-up. Their characters remain nothing more than that, elaborate characters portrayed by a pair of famous women having a grand time showing audiences that they can be faraway, different women. Moore and Kidman have been better before, and while their Hours performances are not bad, a film as lush as Daldry's deserves better.

Streep is the only one of the three actresses who hits the dramatic heart of her character, showing a modern, urbane woman who comes to understand just why Mrs. Dalloway resonates with her. She also sees why a dear friend teasingly calls her Mrs. Dalloway. Basically, Streep gives The Hours meaning, and Daldry's sprawling film would have benefited from the same treatment from its other two stars.
CityBeat grade: B.

E-mail Steve Ramos

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