Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 409: Here's to you Mrs. Dalloway

As we've seen throughout the course of this blog, plenty of Oscar nominees and winners been based on well-known pieces of literature. However, the next film on hour list; 2003 nominee The Hours is rather uniquely inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. David Hare's adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel focuses on three women who are all touched by the book in different ways.

The first story concentrates on Woolf herself as she begins to write Mrs. Dalloway in 1923 whilst at the same time dealing with her various emotional issues. The second story is set in suburban Los Angeles during the early 1950s and deals with Laura Brown who is reading Mrs. Dalloway. Finally, in modern day New York, Clarissa Vaughan is planning a party for her dying poet friend Richard who refers to her as Mrs. Dalloway. Despite their disparate time lines and settings; all of the three women who The Hours concentrates on have plenty of similarities. All of three are suffering from mental problems of all kinds; with Virginia struggling with her countryside surroundings, Laura considering suicide and Claudia busying herself with party planning to blot out her insecurities. All three women also have feelings for the same sex whether it be on show, such as Claudia's lesbian relationship with her long term partner, or kept behind closed doors. What I liked about Hare's screenplay was the fact that he kept all three storylines ticking along nicely and made sure that we didn't forget about any one thread. If I'm honest, the least interesting of the three stories was that of Woolf herself who was a little bit too precious to ever care about that much. I enjoyed the subtlety of the Laura storyline and its exploration of the dark underbelly of 1950s suburbia. Meanwhile, Claudia's tale was full of regret and had a rather shocking scene towards the end of it. One element of the final scenes I wasn't particularly keen on was the way that Claudia and Laura's scenes linked together however it did make sense to the overall tale.

Interestingly all three of The Hours' lead actresses were nominated at that year's ceremony however only two of them were representing that film. Despite giving the weakest turn of the three, Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Virginia Woolf netted her that year's Best Actress prize. I would agree with those who theorised that the reason that she was given the award was for putting on a prosthetic nose that made her look only slightly detracted from her overall beauty. Kidman did little to make me care about the Woolf scenes which only perked up with the arrival of Miranda Richardson as her lively sister. Even though she was on screen longer, Julianne Moore was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her tender portrayal of Laura Brown; a woman who was on the verge of ending it all. Moore was also nominated for Best Actress that year for a similar turn in Far From Heaven however I think her performance in The Hours was slightly better. Oddly the best performance of the trio, which came from Meryl Streep, failed to garner a nomination with the actress instead being recognised for her turn in Adaptation. I think that Streep delivered one of her greatest performances as the bisexual Claudia who was hanging on to the one summer she spent with the love of her life, Richard. As Richard, Ed Harris was a revelation and I feel that he should have won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year that ultimately went to Streep's Adaptation co-star Chris Cooper. Aside from the fine performances and well-paced plot, Philip Glass' ever-present score deserves a mention even if it did make some of the scenes feel slightly overblown. This was my first time watching The Hours and I have to admit that I rather liked it even if Kidman's scenes as Woolf bored me a little. It was great to see a female-centric tale garner so much acclaim and I found it to be an easy-to-watch, well-written film.

Next time we return to the work of a director who had somewhat of a resurgence in the early 21st century.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 401: A Deathly Twist (Spoilers)

Over the 400 plus films I've seen some of them have included some memorable twists including the revelation of Rosebud as a sleigh or the fact that the majority of the characters in A Beautiful Mind. But of all the great movie twists one stands head and shoulders above the rest, that being the final revelation in The Sixth Sense. Obviously to talk about in some detail would require some plot spoiling so if you haven't seen this film that was released over fifteen years ago then I suggest you either watch it or move on.

The Sixth Sense stars Bruce Willis who was on a second career resurgence following his downward trajectory post-Pulp Fiction. Willis plays Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist who is shot in the opening scene by a former patient who believed that his former doctor failed him. Several months later Dr. Crowe is tasked with taking on a new case in the form of nine-year-old Cole Sear. From the outset, writer/director M. Night Shyamalan presents Cole as an outsider by having picked on at school both by the pupils and the teachers. Meanwhile Cole's mother Lynn starts to worry about her son's state of mind and starts experiencing odd occurrences in the house. Things come to a head in a classic scene where Cole informs Crowe that he sees dead people. From this moment on we get to see things from Cole's perspective and learn that he tries to help people cross over to the other side by helping them in some way. This is seen via a subplot involving a dead girl who wants her father to know that her stepmother's poisoning was the reason she passed away. Although the hints were there, Shyamalan eventually lets the audience in on the film's major twist; that Malcolm himself is actually dead. His reason for staying on Earth is to understand how he failed the man who fatally shot and also to make sure his wife knew that he loved her. I think, in the year's since its release The Sixth Sense has sort of become synonymous with this twist ending. That's why I tried to be more subjective in my judgement of the movie and looked at it as a whole.

For a movie that is essentially a psychological thriller with elements of a horror film, I'm surprised that The Sixth Sense garnered a Best Picture nomination to begin with. This surprise comes from the fact that the film is set in the present day, features no 'issue-based' characters and doesn't contain any flashy set pieces. Instead, it's quite a traditional character-led piece that has several chiller-esque elements which build up to the big reveal. I can't remember if I actually spotted the twist the first time round, but every repeat view of The Sixth Sense makes it more and more obvious that Malcolm is a ghost. Disregarding the twist, I think that Shyamlan's script is at its strongest when we follow the tortured Cole; who is one of the best written young characters that I've encountered so far. The portrayal of Cole is enhanced due to the outstanding performance by Haley Joel Osment; who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role. Osment gives an incredibly tender portrayal of a boy who is struggling in his personal life due to his extraordinary ability to communicate with the other side. Despite its silly premise, I don't think The Sixth Sense ever really loses any credibility and instead the latter scenes fill in the gaps of Cole's character. Alongside Osment, Toni Collette also was nominated for a Supporting Actress Oscar for her assured turn as Cole's worried mother. Bruce Willis anchored the whole film together well and, as someone who's best known for his action roles, I found him perfectly convincing as a mild-mannered child psychologist. Shymalan showed throughout The Sixth Sense that he knew how to perfectly build-up to a killer reveal and he punctuated the film's many shocks with some real human emotion. Unfortunately, with the exception of his second feature Unbreakable, every Shyamlan film has significantly dipped in quality with his latest offering After Earth being a prime example. However, The Sixth Sense does demonstrate how good a storyteller Shyamlan was when he first appeared on the scene and I'm hoping that one day we'll see this brilliance at work once again.

Next time we see a British actor and writer team up for two true life tales that garnered numerous nominations at separate Oscar ceremonies.