‘The Hours’ of anxiety at local literary salon

There were two private screenings at ArcLight Hollywood on Thursday night, one for “The Hours,” one for the upcoming “BachelorMan,” but there was only one line snaking through the courtyard of the shiny new complex. “This line is for ‘The Hours’ only,” said a handsome young man with an ArcLight dog tag around his neck as he moved along handing out discount parking stickers. “Is everyone in line here for ‘The Hours’?”

In a way, it was a moot question. One look at the queue and you knew these were not the sort of folks who were going to turn out for a film called “BachelorMan.” The median age was perhaps 50, there were a lot of really good coats and handbags, much Coach and original Burberry, a few Liberty-type scarves. There were many clusters and pairs of women, some holding copies of the novel from which the film was made.

A pair of twentysomething guys approached the end of the line. “Are you here for ‘The Hours’?” the theater official asked. They shook their heads vehemently, looked a little frightened. “BachelorMan,” they said in unison.

No kidding.

“The Hours” was being presented by Writers Bloc, a sort of literary salon begun a few years ago by Andrea Grossman. And as the line moved forward, as people got their tickets and began heading -- more like surging -- into the lobby, some folks began to say her name. “Where’s Andrea?” they asked in tones that, over the next half-hour, became more and more anxious.

The ArcLight can be an anxiety-provoking place. The lobby is dominated by an enormous clock and a huge electronic board listing shows and show times. To the right is a restaurant lounge, to the left a newsstand/souvenir shop. Amid the funk of coffee and much perfume, it would not be surprising to hear the hiss of the train pulling into the station, the foghorn tones of the conductor: “Now departing at Gate 9, ‘Adaptation.’ All abooaaard.”

“The Hours” was screening in Theater 10, up a flight of stairs that Rocky might have used. At the top, yet another long line unfurled for the concession stand, slowed by the weight of its very fabulousness. In addition to “Premium Popcorn” and “Classic Movie Candy,” patrons could get mango smoothies and chicken or turkey sausage baguettes with watermelon barbecue sauce.

“Listen,” one woman said as she surveyed the scene, “I survived life in the South Bronx. I can survive this.”

So it was that kind of crowd too.

Which was unfortunate for the folks working the check-in table. Because half an hour before the screening was scheduled to begin, it became painfully clear that the more than 400 seats in Theater 10 were not enough. Typically, Grossman overbooks her events by 30% -- she has, she says, a very high attrition rate. But perhaps because this screening included a talk with “The Hours” author and Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Cunningham and the film’s British screenwriter, playwright David Hare, or more probably because it was, courtesy of Paramount Pictures, gratis, every person who had signed up for the event had shown up.

“I made a reservation,” said one woman when she, along with about 100 others, was informed that there were no longer any seats available. “A reservation. Let me talk to Andrea. Where’s Andrea?”

Grossman was, by that point, in the theater trying to find people seats, splitting up groups and couples, several of whom kissed each other goodbye as if one were about to embark on the Titanic.

The scheduled show time came and Grossman grilled two men sitting next to chairs covered with coats. “They went to the bathroom,” one man said. “Well, I’ve been watching those seats and they’ve been in the bathroom a very long time,” Grossman answered. Finally, a young man announced that anyone without tickets should leave now because there were four people with tickets and the movie was not going to start until they were seated. At first, no one quite knew what to do with this information, but after a lot of coat and handbag shifting, the four available seats were located.

Grossman then welcomed everyone and reminded them that Cunningham and Hare would be expecting “a large audience of interested and attentive people. So don’t leave.”

After all this, the sight of Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf taking her fateful rock-laden steps into the River Ouse was almost anticlimactic.

Almost.

After the film, novelist and screenwriter were introduced by film critic F.X. Feeney. “I need to get oriented here,” Cunningham said before answering the first question. “I am not used to being in the middle of a huge blue room filled with people I haven’t met yet.”

For 20 minutes or so, the three talked entertainingly about the things writers talk about. What had drawn them to the subject of the work -- Cunningham wrote the book, he said, as a sort of homage to the life-changing experience he had upon reading “Mrs. Dalloway.”

“I was just a skateboard kid at La Canada High School and a girl I really loved, she was 15, said, ‘Have you ever thought of being less stupid?’ I hadn’t, actually. But she was reading Eliot and Woolf so I went to the library, well, the bookmobile, and all they had was ‘Mrs. Dalloway.’ It changed my rotten little life. So I wanted to write a book about how reading a book can do that.”

Hare agreed to do the script because it was original.

“I am bored to death with genre films; they are the death of cinema,” he said, “and I thought whatever they say about this film, it’s not going to be about anything you have ever seen in your life.”

They talked about Woolf, they talked about sex -- one audience member asked if the trailers had intentionally avoided the fact that several of the characters are gay. “I think we moved beyond the idea of a ‘gay film,’ ” Hare answered to general applause. “I think Michael made it clear in the book that sexuality is very personal.” They were probably just warming up when it was time to go.

The evening wrapped at about 10:15 and everyone left happy, talking about how good the movie was, how handsome Cunningham is and, of course, the Woolfian nose on the Kidman face. Grossman seemed pleased, if exhausted, although she knew the evening was not quite over for her. “All those messages on my voicemail,” she said, grimacing. “I don’t even want to think about it.”