The Hours 2: Electric Boogaloo

Allow me to bite my tongue a bit; The Hours is a fantastic, engaging movie. They do leave things out from the book, and they change a few things around, but they don't change the meaning. Y'know, for the most part. One thing they did that really irked me was the fact that they had Virginia look right square in the mirror at the beginning of the movie. The book was adamant about the fact that she wouldn't ever look in the mirror, because of the creepy monster thing behind her. So it's kind of like the movie is just slapping the book in the face.

Without the fact that Virginia can't look in the mirror, she doesn't seem near as crazy. Don't get me wrong, the fact that they showed Virginia's suicide adds to it. But without her inability to look into mirrors, she might as well have not heard voices, or saw giant jellyfish monsters, or heard sparrows sing in greek. Everything linking Virginia's disease to Richard's is gone from the movie, and for me, that was one of the most intriguing parts of the book. It was just another way all these characters were linked together, but they were all good, and it's a shame to miss any of them.

Really, though, that's the only thing that I really cared about that they changed. The story with Oliver and Walter never really went anywhere, and Mary Krull never really panned out for me. As a whole, I'd say The Hours as a movie stands up well to the book, a fact that is seldom true.