I saw The Hours a while ago, but Tom Negroni's review at BackupBrain reminded me of my disappointment with that movie. While I don't really understand his claim that the movie suggests that "to be heterosexual is to doom yourself to an empty life of misery" (it seems that everyone, gay and straight, in the movie is miserable), Negroni's main complaint that "all of the main characters are selfish, tortured, and not at all sympathetic" is spot-on. I feel like there's a whole class of "artsy" movies that take the same approach (though examples aren't springing to mind at the moment), where selfishness and self-indulgence masquerade as integrity or idealism. One other thought, alluded to by Negroni, this is a thoroughly bourgeois movie: all three central characters are comfortably middle class or above, and although the bourgeoisie is as entitled to emotional crises as anyone else, the characters come off as spoiled whiners more than people experiencing real pain.