Thursday, February 03, 2005

The Hours

There are many fine moments in Stephen Daldry's lugubrious 2002 film The Hours, but one gag is improved by a little background knowledge.

In the film Virginia (Nicole Kidman behind comedy nose)and Leonard Woolf are languishing in dull, provincial Richmond in Surrey. When I worked in Richmond, our offices were only a few doors away from the building in which they founded the Hogarth Press.

In the scene below Leonard catches Virginia at the train station as she is running away to London because she can't stand the isolation. Richmond Station, incidently, is about 5 minutes from their house.


Richmond to the centre of London takes about twenty minutes. You can see a timetable here.

I think she could have got from her house to Bloomsbury in about half an hour with a following wind.

It takes most kids longer than that to get to school. Its scarcely exile in Siberia.

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