Hours

“Hours” (United States, 2013)

In 2005, before Hurricane Katrina strikes New Orleans, Nolan Hayes rushes his wife Abigail Hayes to the emergency room as she is in labor five weeks early. The doctor explains to Nolan that his wife gave birth to a baby girl but lost her life in the process due to liver failure. Nolan refuses to accept her death and is in grief. He then learns that his newborn baby needs to be kept in a ventilator for the next two days before she can breathe on her own. The only problem is that the hurricane is beginning to flood the hospital and the ventilator can't be moved.

When the hurricane becomes too strong, everyone in the hospital, including the doctors and nurses, evacuate the building, leaving only Nolan and his baby (who he names Abigail, after her mother) in the empty hospital. One of the nurses promises to bring back help and leaves, because Nolan is unwilling to abandon his baby. The power then goes out and Nolan is forced to find a way to keep his baby alive.

I was really impressed by this movie! I haven’t seen such an emotionally powerful film for a long time. The director, Eric Heisserer, reflected the main values of our life such as family, fatherhood, loyalty and self-sacrifice.

We see the main character Nolan (Paul Walker) changing during the film. At first he is very distracted because of his wife’s death and he doesn’t even realize that he has become a father. He can’t think about anything but his wife!
But when the hurricane becomes stronger and the water floods the hospital Nolan is very concerned about his little girl and refuses to abandon her when everyone leaves the hospital. He understands that the only person he has at the moment is his little child and he decides to do everything he can to save her.

As the power went off, Nolan finds a hand-cranked generator in a storeroom and is able to manually charge the ventilator battery until the rescuers will manage to save them, but it only holds a charge for three minutes. He also finds some more I.V.s for the baby to keep her nourished, and some food and drinks for him to stay alive as well. With each charge the battery life gets shorter. Using only that amount of time, Nolan tries to juggle trying to get help outside of the hospital and rushing to help his baby before her timer runs out. Sometimes, Nolan sits down with his baby and tells the story about how he met her mother, to help keep himself preoccupied.

I believe that Nolan speaks to his daughter not only to keep himself preoccupied but also to insure his little baby that he is by her side and won’t leave her. So the baby feels it and gets strength. And he exhausts himself in order to help his little baby-girl.

Finally, when the battery goes off, Nolan tries to use artificial respiration to keep his child alive and it actually works! When the emergency response group comes to rescue him he hears his baby crying and is full of happiness and joy!

At the end of the film we can observe Nolan tired and exhausted embracing his lovely little child! And this is the moment which will make you cry.

In my opinion the main advantage of this film is Paul Walker who was definitely one of the brilliant Hollywood actors and who knew what movie he should choose! So, in the end I would like to add that if you haven’t seen this film yet I strongly recommend you to watch it, because such movies help us not to lose hope and fill our hearts with love!

Kate Shchurouskaja