The Hours

Stephen Daldry adapts Michael Cunningham’s 1998 novel, which took the Pulitzer the following year, from a screenplay by the playwright David Hare. It opens in 1941, with Virginia Woolf filling her pockets with stones and walking into the river. Only then do the three strands begin, and each covers a single day. Nicole Kidman wore a prosthetic nose as Woolf, and the makeup team of Ivana Primorac, Conor O’Sullivan and Jo Allen was nominated at the BAFTAs. At the 75th Academy Awards the film drew 9 nominations, best picture and best director among them, and Kidman alone won. At the 60th Golden Globes it was named best drama and Kidman best actress in a drama, a category in which Meryl Streep was also nominated. At the 56th BAFTAs Kidman won, as did Philip Glass for the score. At the 53rd Berlin International Film Festival the Silver Bear for best actress was not split: Streep, Kidman and Moore received it together. It opened on 11 screens and went wide only on 14 February, three days after the Oscar nominations were announced. A good fit if you want Glass’s repeating piano doing much of the work of tying the three strands together. Not for anyone sensitive about suicide; it enters all three strands.