The Hours was a very interesting spin-off of Mrs. Dalloway. There were parallels between the actual book and the modern spin-off part of the movie that made sense. It also gave a sense to how Virginia Woolf may have lived her life and some of the struggles she faced. There were also some connections between when Woolf was writing Mrs. Dalloway to the modern version.
One of the most interesting changes was the end result of who ends up with who. In the modern version Clarissa marries Sally, which suggests that that is the way she really felt in the book but was restrained by the time period. I felt like that was a definite possibility while reading the book and the addition or change of that in the movie made sense. Since the expectations and freedoms changed by the time the modern version took place it felt like it really was a modern version, because I feel like if Clarissa had the choice she would have chosen Sally.
Another interesting thing about the movie is the miss-mash of characters that the movie calls Richard. When I was trying to line up who was who in the movie and in the book he was very hard. Richard in the movie seemed to be a combination of Richard, Peter, and Septimus at times. He seemed like Richard simply because that was the name they gave him and all of the others matched. Yet, since he didn't end up with Clarissa he reminisces about the movies version of Bourton when he was with her. He also seems like Septimus because he is a poet, had mental illness, and he had a romantic relationship with Louis Waters like Septimus might have been able to have with Evans. He also commits suicide near the end of the movie. I feel like the movie was very successful in it's portrayal of what might have happened between all of the characters given a modern setting.
I feel like the modern day Richard is Richard in his name only. I believe that the main basis for the character is Peter and on top of his already interesting relationship with Clarissa a layer of the depression from Septamus is added. To be completely honest I found this character much more compelling then Septamus was but that is probably because a more modern setting is much easier to relate to.
ReplyDeleteClarissa Vaughn--Meryl Streep's character--is a kind of parallel to Woolf's Clarissa Dalloway, but she is a distinct character. (For one thing, she's read Woolf's novel, and she and Richard share a private joke about him comparing her to the fictional Mrs. Dalloway.) So her Sally is not the "same" Sally as in Woolf's novel--we learn little about their past together, or how they met--but Michael Cunningham is implying that this Clarissa has a good deal more freedom to have a stable, familial, married-style relationship with another woman, which Clarissa Dalloway never would have considered possible. Ironically, though, their "marriage" (they don't seem to be actually married, but they've been living together for about 10 years) is in a sketchy spot when we meet them (Sally sneaking in after dawn), and Clarissa's malaise is an echo of Clarissa Dalloway's uncertainty about her own marriage.
ReplyDeleteThe parallels are there, but the film tweaks and blurs a lot of the characters--the New York plot isn't just _Mrs. Dalloway_ retold in a contemporary setting.