MovieChat Forums > The Hours (2003) Discussion > Weird, Bad Artsy Movie

Weird, Bad Artsy Movie

posted 9 years ago by bpollen
3 replies | jump to latest

I like artsy movies well enough. But this thing was so convoluted, esoteric, symbolic, and artsy fartsy as to be not worth watching.

Watching this movie would make a person thing that human beings are depressed, unhappy, ungrateful, have a lot of time on their hands to ponder the meaning of life and question if they're happy enough, and of course....everyone is secretly homosexual. Oh,,,,and everyone can bake.

Example: Older woman Julianne Moore tells Maryl Streep's character, about abandoning Streep's husband Ed Harris as a little boy, and abandoning her newborn baby and sweet, doting, hard working husband....she tells Streep that she had planned it for months. She left a note, though. She made breakfast, then left and got on a bus and never looked back. Why? Moore emotionally and dramatically and quietly says, "It was either death, or....." (Say What????)

Skip it. You're not missing anything in the plot and script. If you need a Moore or Streep or Kidman fix, though, this might work, because the acting is good.

[–] jazychou 9 years ago

Exactly what I felt about the movie except I wouldn't call it "bad", because after all the performance of the actress and the background music are really impressive.

[–] brendanchenowith 9 years ago

I agree with jazychou...weird, yes - artsy, definitely, but far from bad.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.

[–] AmyGaipaQueen 9 years ago

You seem to lack basic human empathy toward lives unlike your own, as well as a grave misunderstanding of chronic depression and suicidal mentality.

Watching this movie would make a person thing that human beings are depressed, unhappy, ungrateful, have a lot of time on their hands to ponder the meaning of life and question if they're happy enough, and of course....everyone is secretly homosexual.

In no way does this film attempt to suggest that all human beings are depressed. This is the story of three individuals' experiences with mental illness.

The rigid gender roles of the 1950s robbed women like Laura Brown the sense of agency to control the direction of their own lives. Combine that with a chronic chemical imbalance and it's a recipe for disaster. A common symptom of depressed individuals is seeing things in black and white terms. It's all or nothing. After Laura's failed suicide attempt she knew that in order to survive she has to leave. If she stayed, she wouldn't be able to trust herself enough to not kill herself eventually. Her children could either have a mother who abandoned them, or a mother who killed herself. She chose life.