The Ruby in the Smoke

Overall, I did enjoy The Ruby in the Smoke. I confess I haven't read Phillip Pullman's book, so I can't judge how faithful or not it was. I enjoyed it, but I did feel that also it was too short and rushed and underdeveloped in places. It starts off promisingly, but then there are characters that appeared here and there and disappeared without explanation. In particular Trembler. As I said, the adaptation could have done with being at least half an hour longer, so that it was less rushed. The plot is on the whole complex, involving and fascinating, and the script was sharply observed in general as well. The music was lovely, and the adaptation was really nice to look at, with clean photography and lavish costumes. However, some of the sets didn't quite feel like the 1880s, it looked a bit too clean. Though I must say the scenery was breathtaking. The acting was impressive; while Billie Piper looked luminous and made the most of her protagonist, Sally Lockhart could have done with more character development. JJ Field, Tony Maudsley and Hayley Atwell give stellar performances and the brilliant Julie Walters is exceptional as Mrs Holland. All in all, a well done adaptation, if rather rushed, short and underdeveloped. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Well, I have to say I approached this Victorian thriller with a great deal of pessimism, after being disappointed repeatedly by Masterpiece Theatre (PBS/WGBH) in recent years. Helen Mirren's final 'Prime Suspect', which aired recently, had returned my interest in the honorable, high-road TV series, which had been mired in humorlessly rendered Miss Marple, mediocre Sherlock Holmes, and another tiresome Jane Eyre. Julie Walters has saved the day in this wonderfully crisp and nicely produced Victorian thriller with a young female lead, several refreshing new faces and an excellent TV script. Miss Walters puts in a chilling performance, as notable as her work in 'Educating Rita' and 'Billy Elliot'. What a relief! I would have been quite sad if it had been otherwise. The pace of this production reminds me of the Jeremy Brett 'Sherlock Holmes' of twenty years ago. The strength of this piece is the chain of excellent female characters, major and minor. It has mood and visual production values which captivate, despite their simplicity. I am so pleased to be back as a fan.

The Sally Lockhardt mysteries proved to be a mild disappointment. They are not up to the usual BBC period drama standards - or rather they haven't gotten the period drama treatment. The story relies heavily on a Victorian atmosphere, but you rarely get this in the film adaptations. First of all, Miss Piper, lovely and talented as she is, has the least Victorian beauty imaginable. She is so much AD 2000 that every scene with her in it loses every kind of credibility. One can argue that women were born with different features in olden days - but they pretty much tried to rearrange their facial muscles to imitate the accepted standards of any given era. Where today's actresses try to make their lips appear lush and succulent, every Victorian girl would have subconsciously made every effort to make her mouth appear as a tiny rosebud. The same goes for eyes, hair, posture, gestures. Miss Piper walks straight out of 2007 and makes everything around her 2007.

Watching the adaptations, one also gets the impression that the Victorian society was very welcoming to different races and accepted them into the society with open arms. Almost in every single shot featuring the London society, there are Asian, Caribbean and Black people, the latter even boosting rasta hairstyle on one occasion. The golden truth however is that representatives of these races only got into contact with The Society as footmen and servants, and never ever mixed with them.

My overall impression was that these adaptations were meant for a young viewer who cares little for the authenticity of a traditional well mounted BBC period piece production. If you want some moderate tension and a fairly watchable entertainment with some good moments, don't hesitate to view these films. I don't regret sitting through them at one go, I only wish I would have been totally overwhelmed.

I think really for you to understand the movie you have got to read the book first. Its a fairly short read and can clear some of the confusion people have with the movie. Like the guy before me, I think the scenes do jump around quite quickly so you have to pay constant attention. They actors I thought were pretty decent and I thought that Billie Piper was the perfect pick to act out Sally Lockhart. She has those eyes that just caught my attention and right at the start of the movie I could identify her as Sally.

Overall a pretty good movie but i thought it should've have been up around 2 hours long at least since they rushed the movie a little. However, I do hope that they will film the next movie soon because I'm a decent fan of this book series.

I haven't read "The Ruby in the Smoke" which probably explains my reaction to this film. Anyway, for the other uninitiated amongst you, this is the basic plot - young Sally Lockhart (Billie Piper) is living with her aunt after her father's ship sank. It turns out there is more to this death than it seems, as Sally receives a cryptic note, eventually leading her to a man named Marchbanks who gives her a notebook and tells her she has an enemy called Mrs Holland (Julie Walters, at her villainous best). This leads Sally through a maze of clues and memories, finding out the fate of her father and the truth of her own origins, and the truth of the elusive eponymous ruby.

I feel this would have done very well as a television series, but as a film it merely felt rushed. The characters introduced promised to be interesting, but weren't really properly developed, and I had trouble keeping up with all the twists in the plot, which were rushed by in seconds. Sally seemed like a fascinating character, but her character development was left to a few scenes of her standing up to her aunt and demonstrating her ability for dealing with figures. This left the film feeling somewhat sterile - more of a puzzle than a story.