Year 2002: The Hours

Although good performances are not really hard to come by, especially when you have the acting trio of Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman in the same picture, an exquisite story, in my opinion, is all you will ever need to make a timeless piece truly effortless. Based on the Pulitzer prized novel by Michael Cunningham, The Hours has made an indelible mark on my life, the sequence on Virginia Woolf in particular. In all honesty, I never knew anything about her or her works prior to this movie, our literature professors in school may have deliberately forgotten to introduced her, which is stupid if you ask me. The woman who basically championed the use of 'stream of consciousness' was ignored by my stupid lit professors. Shame on them! I would rather have Beowulf deleted from our curriculum. There are so many unforgettable scenes and lines I find myself going back and forth, hit rewind and replay over and over again, such as the part where Virginia Woolf broke down in the train station - telling Leonard she is 'dying on this town'. Kidman has not only embodied Woolf on the surface but also unabashedly embraced her strength, genius and illness like they were of the same person.