Director Stephen Daldry follows up the huge global success of Billy Elliot with this elegiac adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel, from a screenplay by award-winning playwright David Hare.

The Hours cuts back and forth between three different time frames, and three women facing similar dilemmas.

In 1923, writer Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) struggles to complete her novel, Mrs Dalloway, while coping with a growing estrangement from her husband (Stephen Dillane). A meeting with her sister (Miranda Richardson) convinces Virginia to consider the ultimate act of self-sacrifice.

In 1951, housewife Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is profoundly affected by reading Mrs Dalloway. She re-evaluates her humdrum suburban life and realises how unhappy she is despite a loyal husband (John C Reilly) and a beautiful son (Jack Rovello).

Finally, in 2001, lesbian book editor Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) plans a swanky party to celebrate a prestigious award won by her poet friend Richard Brown (Ed Harris). She throws herself into preparations, organising food and decorations, hoping to blot out her anxieties over her relationship with long time partner Sally (Allison Janney).

The Hours is strongly tipped to sweep the board at this year's Oscars and it's easy to see why.

Every frame of the film has been meticulously designed and crafted, and the ensemble cast expertly wrings out the maelstrom of emotions which gradually consumes the characters.

Kidman, sporting a prosthetic nose which renders her almost unrecognisable, submerges herself in Virginia's melancholy and gradually allows us into the mind of her tortured genius.

Moore is heartbreaking as the dutiful homemaker inspired by Woolf's prose, and Streep is superb as ever as a woman living vicariously through others.

Supporting performances are just as flawless including Harris's scene-stealing as a once brilliant and vivacious man ravaged by Aids.

Daldry's consummate direction stitches these stories together into a fluid narrative, investing the story with striking imagery such as Moore lying on a bed in a room rapidly filling with water.

Unquestionably one of the best films of the year.

Rating: 9 /10