Great Expectations

`Great Expectations' is the best of Charles Dickens's novels. Maybe it's the best novel that there is. It's certainly a novel where every incident is important - so there is no excuse for a TV version being a miserable three hours long. If they HAD to truncate it, though, then there's no help for it: some valuable scenes must be removed.

What they've done instead is to sort of leave everything in, but skate over it all at high speed. It's as if they've simply left out every other sentence. The opening encounter with Magwitch in the churchyard is conveyed without being shown at all. We get a few seconds of terror, then a cut to later that evening, and then we're shown a bit more of the crucial scene in flashback - only just enough to understand what is going on, if that. (Don't even get me STARTED on the ludicrous editing, or the self-consciously arty camera angles.) Some scenes have been re-written. The result is usually awful.

Is this just the complaint of someone who has read the book, and finds the filmed version to be different? No: rather the reverse. If you haven't read the book you'll have a much harder time than I did even making sense of things; and you won't, as I did, have any particular reason to care about the characters.

For instance: the central character is Pip. Anyone who has read the book knows how close Dickens brings us to him. Not once in this version are we, so to speak, introduced to Pip. No scene lasts long enough - he does not confide in any other character long enough - for us to get a sense of his motivations or a reason to continue to sympathise with him after he does something shameful. What's more, the mature Pip is an utter disaster. The re-writing of key encounters with Miss Havisham, Orlick, and Estella (that's right - all three) makes Pip out to be more thoughtless, more cowardly, more vindictive and less intelligent than Dickens makes him out to be. (Note that Dickens doesn't make him out to be vindictive at all.) If we care what happens to him at all it's only because we have even less reason to care what happens to anyone else.

I've only scratched the surface - it's bad all the way through. I will, though, allow that many of the actors give excellent performances under trying circumstances. (I can't warm at all to Ioan Gruffudd as the mature Pip, but that was probably the script.) That's about it. I can't even recommend this as the best TV version going, since the Disney series of 1989 (a decent five hours long) is all that one could wish for. With that version in existence this one was just a waste of everyone's time. Don't make it a waste of yours.

I've seen some three or four adaptations of this classic novel, and I honestly think that this is one of the best out there. The settings are appropriately dark and in keeping with Dickens' bleak writing, a shining example being Miss Havisham's mansion. The acting is perfectly superb; Ioan Gruffudd is most definitely one of the best finds of the past few years. Ian McDiaramid is wonderful as usual, and Gruffudd's Titanic castmate Bernard Hill (that movie's Captain EJ Smith) is a great Magwitch. Keep your eye on Ioan, I predict great things! His performance is outstanding, down to the replacing of his own Welsh accent with Pip's distinctive lower-class English one. Lovely filming, great direction and wonderful acting make this a great addition to the already distinguished collection of the BBC.

I have always enjoyed the old David Lean version in spite of the fact that it is so abridged and has a "Hollywood" happy ending. This version of 'Great Expectations' knocked me back by its fidelity to the original book... I had not expected to see it filmed with the bittersweet and ambiguous ending that is employed here with such a powerful effect.

There is nothing in the nature of the usual cinematic mawkishness that so often accompanies adaptations of Dickens books to film. Nothing exaggerated, nothing glossed over. The characters are flesh and blood and their emotions are vividly characterized by a wonderful cast of performers.

Ioan Gruffudd, Justine Waddell and Charlotte Rampling are fabulous as Pip, Estella and Miss Havisham. Rampling's Havisham is terrifying in her quiet way, like the ghost of a dead princess haunting her huge Satis House. Waddell's Estella is the truly tragic figure, as in the book. She has been prevented from developing the "loving mechanism" found in most human beings. Waddell's conveyance of this dilemma is profoundly moving. Gruffudd's highly responsive Pip is also deeply felt. Their younger counterparts, played by two wonderful young actors, Gabriel Thompson and Gemma Gregory, possess uncanny resemblances to Gruffudd and Waddell. One of the best transitions in time, as far as character development, I've ever seen.

The photography is utterly beautiful, the music haunting and memorable in its stark simplicity. It is rare that I notice the editing but this film is so perfectly put together that I took clear notice of the artistry at work in that department.

For Dickens addicts this film is a must for your collection; for lovers of great cinema I would say the same thing. This version of 'Great Expectations' SHOULD have been a major film release in the theaters. Even if it had been more than the four hours it takes in the TV adaption, longer even, I think it would have had a greater following than it enjoys.

Julian Jerrold's 'Great Expectations' joins the short list of the finest productions out of Masterpiece Theatre's stables, along with 'I Claudius', 'The Jewel in the Crown' and 'Brideshead Revisited.'

See it!

Director Julian Jarrold does a truly excellent job of bringing Charles Dickens' finest novel to the screen. Filled with haunting camera angles, a magnificent score by Peter Salem, and superb acting by Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd and Justine Waddall, this version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS is defintly worth multiple viewings!!

This is Charles Dicken's bleakest story by far, and for that reason alone I've always detested it. I made a point of seeing this production because Ioan Gruffudd was in it. I was not disappointed.

Once again, Mr. Gruffudd shows his ability to become the character, with a talent far beyond many better known young actors. His voice is so musical that one can avoid the story line and simply enjoy the sound.

Charlotte Rampling was a far more interesting Haversham than others I've seen. She had a slightly sinister quality just under the surface that was quite delicious.

Watch the production for the talent within. It's well worth your time.