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Verdict: Hours well-spent.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
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In the masterful new film "The Hours," the only one afraid of Virginia Woolf is Virginia Woolf herself. So scared was she that she famously committed suicide in 1941. Loading her pockets with stones, she drifted into a river and out of life.

It is with this image, the singular moment of giving up, that Stephen Daldry ("Billy Elliot") begins his movie. The rest concerns the pain and fear of not giving up, which some of the characters handle better than others.

Based on Michael Cunningham's prize-winning book, which has been expertly adapted by playwright David Hare, "The Hours" takes place over the course of a single day in the lives of three different women, all living at different times and in different places yet all connected to Woolf's classic novel "Mrs. Dalloway."

In 1923, Woolf herself (a sensational Nicole Kidman with a sensational false nose) is languishing in a London suburb, where she's been banished by her doctors and her adoring husband, Leonard (Stephen Dillane), after a suicide attempt. On this day, she begins to write "Mrs. Dalloway," which is about a day in the life of a well-off conventional London socialite who is planning a party. The opening line reads: "Mrs. Dalloway said that she would buy the flowers herself."

Flash forward to downtown Manhattan, 2001. Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep), who happens to share Mrs. Dalloway's first name, is a successful book editor who divides her time with her lover Sally (Allison Janney); her grown daughter, Julia (Claire Danes); and Richard (Ed Harris), Clarissa's ex-lover, who is dying of AIDS. Richard has just won a literary prize, and Clarissa, whom he teasingly refers to as Mrs. Dalloway, is throwing him a party. She decides to buy the flowers herself.

In between is Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), a pregnant wife and mother living in sunny suburban California in 1951. Not only is she reading "Mrs. Dalloway," but she, too, is planning a party of sorts. She and her adorable son are going to spend the afternoon baking a birthday cake for her very '50s, kind but clueless husband, Dan (John C. Reilly).

The multilayered story glides among the three women. We cut from Kidman washing her face in the '20s to Moore drying hers in the '50s. Streep and Kidman make the same gesture as they sit in front of their dressing tables, each fixing her hair. Another parallel: All three plant a more-than-friends kiss on another woman.

Death hovers over these lives like an uninvited party guest. In the midst of her Betty Crocker daze, Moore still finds enough clarity to contemplate suicide. The very angry, very ill Richard lashes out at Clarissa, telling her, "I think I'm only trying to stay alive to please you." (Clarissa's exquisite reply: "That's what people do. They stay alive for each other.") And Woolf, taking a break from her writing, idly notes to Leonard that she's decided to kill off one of her characters. When he asks why, she says simply, "Someone has to die so the rest of us can value life more."

The movie sounds morose. It isn't. The actors keep it achingly vital. Harris is as good here as he was in "Pollack." Janney and Toni Collette, as Moore's neighbor (the very essence of '50s femininity with her full skirts and flawless makeup) are excellent, as are Miranda Richardson as Woolf's more grounded sister and Jeff Daniels as another of Richard's former lovers.

Still, the transcendent trio of stars does the heavy lifting. Already acclaimed for her '50s homemaker in "Far From Heaven," Moore is cast in a similar part here. But her subtle character shadings set the two women totally apart. She even wears her Donna Reed dresses differently.

Streep captures the steady thrum of a successful Manhattanite who's not used to taking on projects that don't work out. Her devotion to Richard — and to their long-ago happiness — is a transfixing mix of sacrifice and selfishness. She refuses to let him say no to life, ignoring that he's saying no with every breath he takes.

First among equals, however, is Kidman. Once you get past the nose — which effectively transforms her from a dazzler to a pale, bookish beauty — you can still barely believe that this is the siren who pranced her way through "Moulin Rouge." Kidman understands how Woolf's anguish is the flip side of her genius, how much her death wish is integral to her life.

The film's emotional brutality snaps us out of a potential this-is-so-sad stupor. It never fails to engage us. Perhaps the true measure of its excellence is, when you're watching Moore, you wonder what's going on with Streep, and when you're watching Streep, you're wondering what's going on with Kidman, and when you're watching Kidman ... well, you get the idea. With a cast like this, "The Hours" seems to pass in seconds.