January 17.2003 • J u s t 0 * 1:3 9
Remember The Bonfire of the Vanities ?) Well,
breathe a sign of relief, because this movie is
(nearly) as lyrical and affecting as the novel.
The Hours boasts a veritable dream team of a
crew and cast. Stephen Daldry of Billy Elliot fame
was reeled in to direct by producer Scott Rudin
(Wander Boys, The Riryal Tenenhaums), while
David Hare (Plenty) adapted the screenplay. In a
move that communicated serious expectations for
this film, the cream of the crop of leading actress
were hired: Meryl Streep as Clarissa, Julianne
Mixsre (who also plays a suffocating ’50s housewife
in the queer-themed Far from Heaven ) as Laura
Brown and Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf.
Nicole Kidman as Virginia Wtxilf? I know, 1
rolled my eyes, too. But not only does she pull it
off, she practically channels the writer, who was
in her mid-50s when she penned Mrs. DalLnvay.
Kidman is nearly unrecognizable in the flawless
makeup, and you’ll get a kick out of suddenly rec
ognizing her in a turn of her mouth or a couple of
quick syllables. Of the three, she’s the standout—
it’s a career-peaking, award-winning performance.
The always-rewarding Ed Harris plays
Richard, a man who’s seen and had enough—
of his past, of his disease. Harris is sublime,
stumbling around a cluttered, filthy apartment,
voicing haunting ruminations.
Daldry directs all this with a slow and
steady pace, allowing ample screen time for
characters to convey inner conflict and desire
often missing from hurried pnxluctions. This is
key to the film’s successful adaptation of Cun
ningham’s modernist approach.
The eclectic scenery forced by three time
periods and starkly contrasting locations is per
fectly executed, grounding the film’s visual cer
tainty. Critics have dissed the musical score as
overhearing; don’t believe them. Philip Glass,
composer of The Truman Show and the recent
Naqoyqatsi, indeed induces rousing orchestrals
and opera, hut it all works exactly how and
where it’s supposed to. It’s a sweeping kind of
movie; it needs a sweeping kind of score.
But adaptation is a tricky business. Even
allowing for a completely different art form to tell
the same story, the movie’s main flaws are what it
chcx)ses to change about Cunningham’s book.
Filmmakers take an intense scene of vulnerability
away from Richard’s former male partner and give
it to Clarissa. This is, of course, Streep’s Oscar
moment, but it’s like finding a foreign object in
the celluloid, and it renders the character of the
ex (nicely played by Jeff Daniels) rather useless.
The film also gives away its secrets ttx) stxrn for
no detectable reason, destroying some of the
potential thrill of its final moments.
Still, although these are more than quibbles,
The Hours is a lovely, beautifully acted and hon
estly emotional film. It’s (almost) perfect. JH
2 WEEKS ONLY!
FEBRUARY 1R-M ARCH 2
~<r<- i» >-ra icr
ALSO PLAYING
y 7 J * I
Gil and Roy traverse a murky path of friendship and family in The Slaughter Rule
T he S laughter R ule
Hollywood Thi’atre, Jan. 17 to 23
y father told me if I was hard enough,
I’d never break. He lied. Everything
breaks.” So says Roy Chutney (Ryan
Gosling), whose father, an abuser
whose recent death is not mourned by the
depressed teen-ager or anyhxly else, was better at
dispensing bad advice than hugs.
Roy, freshly cut from the football team, has an
estranged mother and an indifferent girlfriend.
Living in a nowhere niral town in snowbound
Montana, he appears ready to break himself.
Enter Gideon “G id ” Ferguson (David
Morse), a smiling, bearish middle-aged guy
who delivers papers and is trying to cobble
together a six-man bush-league ftxnball
squad. He enlists Roy and his best friend,
Tracy Two Dogs (Eddie Spears), a Blackftxit
Indian who also has an abusive dad.
Gideon becomes a kind of father figure to
the hoys— hut there’s a hitch. Rumors swirl
around this lovable, charismatic guy; it’s said he
caused the death of another yming fixitball
player in a different town and that he’s “queer.”
It dtxjsn’t help that Gid refers to himself as
a “mother hen” and uses every opportunity to
expand his presence in Roy’s life. Gid is emo
tionally direct and demanding in a way that
increasingly disturbs Roy and encourages the
charges of “Roy’s fuck buddy."
Just who is Gid? “I ain’t a man that wants other
men,” he says, with what sounds like absolute hon
esty. “1 just like bein’ in their company.”
Yet when he talks about his “other boy"
who died, he wrenchingly refers to his loss of
“my boy, my beautiful boy!” G id’s character
here and throughout is a bracing mix of raw
self-exposure and tantalizing mystery, beautiful
ly realized by Morse.
The film succeeds superbly by making Gid a
mass of complexities rather than the usual
chicken hawk stereotype and by its compelling
treatment of Roy’s struggle to trust and to
accept love, even from an unlikely source.
Directors Andrew and Alex Smith, twin
brothers, based this brilliant first feature on their
own experiences as part of a rural Montana “men’s
league” run by an overly devoted coach renowned
for doing “cup checks.” They recall their relation
ship with him as “fleeting but haunting," precisely
the rrnxxJ that pervades The Slaughter Rule.
—Gary Morris JH
( H
ON SALE NOW!
Keller Auditorium SW 3rd S Clay
, S (503) 790-ARTS
or (503) 241-1802
ticketmaster
MON-FRI
9am-5pm
Toll Free I-8 B 6 -PDX-0 PERA (739-6737)
E H
Groups of 20+ Call (503) 241-1407
lickcti lub jict to agoncy coo»«m iflC« ch irg oi
*n»w broodwoyocroiiomortco com
www portiondoporo org
m
i n l K i n n t u r eta