What's Next On My List? Hours

As a tradition, each year in memory of Paul Walker, I review a movie that he starred in as long as I run out. I miss him terribly still... he was truly one of my favorites. This is for you, happy birthday!

Hours (2013)

A father-to-be brings his wife to a hospital in the eve of hurricane Katrina: she dies in complications from liver failure, but their baby is saved by the doctors. Put on a ventilator, the baby has to be watched over night, but the hospital needs to be emptied as the storm is getting worse outside. Nolan (Paul Walker) spends close to 48 hours watching over his daughter as the hours slowly pass by. 

Watching this movie I caught myself crying multiple times. We have seen many stories of single dads, that unfortunately is still a reality, as we live in a world where complications in birth cause far too many fatalities. We should be at a time in healthcare where we don't lose mothers, and yet it keeps happening. Many have been raising awareness to the fact that too many people are lost to diseases that should not, in a normal world, be the cause of loss of life. And this movie, which highlighted one of the biggest ecological tragedies of US history, also highlighted how the healthcare system is failing us. I don't want to go into too much of a criticism here, all I am going to say is that the older I get, the more I should trust doctors to take care of us, and unfortunately, the opposite is becoming true. This film, however, also highlighted for me how people alone are just superheroes: we can push the limits and our capabilities if we need to survive. All these stories of everyday heroes are inspiring to me, they keep highlighting that humanity is not lost, hope is not lost, that there is always something more we can do and should not just give in and give up. Our bodies are capable of incredible things, not just to help us survive, but also the ones we love. This movie was definitely about pushing limits, but it still remained grounded in reality, and that kept the tension going and the audience glued to their seats.

I would like to voice the genius of director Eric Heisserer, who has so far only directed this one movie: I hope he does many more. He had these beautiful shots at the beginning of the movie, where the background of noises of the hospital were very much put in the foreground, yet, looking at Nolan, you could follow his feelings, his preoccupation with the situation, the storm, which seemed to be unavoidable, remained second to the plot. Readers of this blog know that I have seen almost all of Paul Walker's movies (still keeping some around so he stays with us for a bit longer), and this was his best acting yet. Heisserer did a fantastic job. As I looked him up I saw that he also wrote the movie, as well as Arrival (2016) and Bird Box (2018), so I hope he gets to direct soon again, I will be looking forward to anything he works on.

That said... I really miss him. It has been years, but it never really goes away. Many famous people passed away, but I have my top three, Paul, George Michael, Carrie Fisher, without whom to me this world is truly the worst place. They still had so much to give, they still had life to live. 

This was a wonderful movie. It was one of the last ones that Walker shot before his passing. It is endearing, exciting, heartwarming, and sad at the same time, but there is something hopeful about it. The main character never gives up fighting, and neither do we as an audience.

Until the next item on my list!