Three women, separated across the 20th century, held together by the trials of time, love and loss. The first, Virginia Woolf, is in the throes of her first defining novel, Mrs Dalloway, while the second is a 1950s housewife now reading Woolf's book, and drawn towards a momentous re-evaluation of her life. The most contemporary of the trio is Clarissa, a woman who to all intents and purposes is Mrs Dalloway, and it is the gradual intertwining of their stories that comprises much of the film's charm. The Hours is a beautifully observed and performed drama, which seamlessly blends fact, fiction and literary masterpiece.