Daniel Deronda

If you're familiar with George Eliot and have read her books, you'll most likely enjoy this adaptation.

But if you're a George Eliot purist, you may be dismayed by the film's romanticization of Daniel & Gwendolyn's relationship. I personally was okay with it and found it a forgivable artistic liberty, as it was handled delicately and tastefully and did not detract from the heart of the story. In fact, I liked the adapted screenplay for its restraint.

If you're a Jane Austen fan but not familiar with Eliot's work, you might find this story lacking in wit compared to Austen's stories, or just too glum. But George Eliot herself was a very different woman from Austen. The Jewish subplot--something that is also present in Eliot's more famous 'Middlemarch'--is enough to make the two authors different, but the sociopolitical depth and soberness of Eliot's work also sets them apart.

The casting was terrific all around (including the magnificently aging Greta Scacchi), and the costumes & scenery were perfect.

~NN

This was one of the more exquisite costume drama adaptations I have seen, with attention to detail absolutely striking in an archery scene that sets the bar for the entire series. Like the novel, it is polarizing in its two stories in one - people seem to either love/hate Daniel's plight or love/hate Gwendolyn's.

Personally, I found Gwendolyn equally annoying in both novel and film. Hugh Darcy, as the eponymous hero, was pretty to look at and delivers a fine, if unremarkable, performance.

But it is Hugh Bonneville as the dastardly Henleigh Grandcourt who took my breath away! He is flawlessly reprehensible, stealing every scene he was in and when he wasn't in a scene, I couldn't wait to see him again! It was terrific seeing Hugh Bonneville in such a role, as he's usually cast in the "very nice guy" roles (Bridget Jones Diary, Iris, Tipping the Velvet, etc). Although he's fine in such roles, as Grandcourt he made my skin crawl with his morally bankrupt, wealthy and pugnacious swagger. LOVED him!

What this series could have used more of was Jodhi May and Greta Scacchi. In difficult supporting roles, both women shine as, respectively, a searching, haunted Jewess and a scorned, bitter mistress. Barbara Hershey makes an appearance late in the series in a pivotal plot device that I won't reveal lest some unsuspecting viewer be bitter with me, and in a limited role gives a performance that reminds us why she became famous in the first place (and at least for this viewer, made me forgive her 'Beaches').

Overall, this adaptation is very enjoyable and recommended viewing for fans of the genre.

I'm watching the British series Daniel Deronda every week on Swedish tv, and I will recommned it to everyone who fancies quality literary adaptations. The production values are impeccable, and the acting list very impressive. The one to catch your attention, though, is without a doubt Hugh Bonneville as the supervillain Grandcourt. He's everything a good oldfashioned villain from the 19.th century ought to be: suave, cool, arrogant, manipulative, morally corrupt, and with a razor sharp wit. In fact, he totally overshadows the meek and handsome, but oh so noble and earnest hero, poor Daniel Deronda! Hugh Dancy does his best, but it's hard work to make Deronda as interesting as Grandcourt! Likewise with the heroine. Romola Garai is beautiful to look at, but it's difficult to really care about Gwendolyn. She's such a silly, whiny, and cold person who would rather marry a man she dislikes than stoop to be a governess! It made me long to give her a good whipping! All in all, I think she and Deronda deserve each other, for being so awfully colourless and boring. I'd much rather spend the time watching the villain smirk, or wonder about miss Lapidoth's strange fate, among the Jews. As usual, being the villain pays off! Hugh Bonneville and David Bamber as Lush are the characters you remember! They really are perfectly selfish and dastardly mean!

Having never read George Eliot's novel, I came into the film with only what I know based on the information friends have given me. The film is utterly exquisite. The costuming alone will have Anglophiles like myself crying from sheer envy, and there's enough archery, riding, and balls to weigh out the seriousness of the film, which is essentially two plots woven into one. An utterly heartless and wretched marriage for a spoiled young Gwendolyn in the form of the evil Grandcourt, a landowner whose sole pleasure lies in torment. Be it his wife or dogs, our heartless villain never takes greater pleasure than in dangling something before them and tearing it away again, only to feed it to someone else. We see a kind of barbarism in this act, be it with the family spaniel or his impoverished, abandoned mistress.

The second plot line, which I found slightly less interesting, was about the film's lead, Daniel Deronda, a presumed illigitimate boy who has been raised a country gentleman. One day while out boating he saves a Jewish singer from drowning herself, and sets out to discover his own true identity through finding her family. I don't know why, but I found myself itching through these scenes to get back to Gwendolyn and her pathetic plight of enslavement to her husband. A second viewing, once I knew the course of the characters, settled me a bit.

The acting is very stellar. There's not a weak link in the cast, although I have to say seeing Barbara Hershey seemed a little out of place in this Victorian paradox. The film makes numerous contrasts between good and evil, selfishness and humility, lies and deception. It's actually quite an achievement, and I was pleased at the amount of restraint showed by the filmmakers. The sexual tension between man and wife will go over most younger viewer's heads, something for which I'm grateful. It's rare we get a wonderful Victorian bodice ripper where the bodice stays on.

"Daniel Deronda" is a worthy knock-off of George Eliot's novel of the same name which tells of a young Englishman's search for meaning and purpose while enjoying a life of property and leisure. As with most Victorian period costume dramas out of the UK, this film is sumptuously appointed and well represented by the players and places as it meanders through the usual multiplicity of relationships from aristocrat to pauper with a Jewish thread for distinction. "Daniel Deronda" conjures a range of characters from a stoic martinet to a spoiled beauty to an attractive Jewess and beyond with love, greed, envy, guile, and death all swirling around the Deronda character as it manages to sort itself out with a coherent story arc and a more or less happy ending. A "should see" for anyone into Victorian flicks. (B)