Great Expectations [DVD]

Most will have seen versions of this popular classic but I can really recommend this one. The acting, direction and production are first class.

As Dickens stories go, Great Expectations was never my favourite, but this was a truly brilliant adaptation. It kept hold of the thrilling aspect and dark, Dickensian feel while still making the softer sides of the story feel as loving as they should. And it was all wrapped up in a fantastic cast!

Although I read voraciously and enjoy challenging literature, I find Dickens heavy going generally. I've noticed that, among enthusiastic readers like me, Dickens is like Marmite: you either love it or loath it. I often find his characters too overblown for credibility, sometimes tending (in my view) towards grotesque (though entertaining) caricatures. That said, they are often memorable - and his plots are fascinating.

I studied Great Expectations at school, but I didn't particularly like it. Perhaps that is why I felt free to enjoy this adaptation for what it is: Beautiful and interesting to look at, evocative, and believable (something I have a problem with in the writing).

I don't agree with the negative review(s) of Ray Winstone as Magwitch: Of course he was himself as usual, which itself brings a particular humanity to his roles, but I understood his Magwitch as a fully-rounded comprehensible person. I loved Gillian Anderson as Miss Haversham. I really admire her as an actor generally and, again, felt that she gave a life and a humanity to the character not present, for me, in the book. Jaggers (David Suchet) became authentic for me, as did his relationship with Molly, and I really liked this version of Wemmick (Paul Ritter). I also disagree with criticisms of the adult Estella (Vanessa Kirby) - she, too, was more vivid for me than before - and I felt she was well cast for this version (the character should not, I feel, be constrained by imagining that she would be a conventionally "beautiful" aristocratic type - that was not the character's true background; and she's MEANT to be cold and unsympathetic until near the end, isn't she?). I felt that the whole script worked very well generally, in its own right. I liked that things were added to the book as well as missed from it: The total number of characters in the original story was pared down and I don't think that's a bad thing - what we got instead was greater depth in those remaining - an imaginative but considered take on the story.

I did feel, however, that Douglas Booth was miscast as Pip - mainly because he DOES look like a boringly upper class beauty - probably because that IS his background (where have all these public school kids on the BBC come from in the last 2 years??? I can't imagine). That said, his performance grew on me, probably because he's not a bad actor: Although he didn't look right and the posh accent was a tad too natural for the role, I found myself going along with him anyway.

Two performances I particularly liked (which I don't think other reviewers have mentioned) were those of Oscar Kennedy, as young Pip, and Shaun Dooley, as a very lovable Joe Gargery. Child actors can be awful but Kennedy was great - I could quite see why his young Pip might have inspired Ray Winstone's Magwitch.

All in all, if you're looking for a painstakingly detailed recreation of Dickens' very long book, this probably won't hit the spot - It's not like the BBC's recent adaptation of Bleak House in that sense, which I also loved. It is more comparable with their version of Oliver Twist (with Timothy Spall as Fagin, Tom Hardy as Bill Sykes and Sophie Okonedo as Nancy), which I also enjoyed as a vivid piece of story-telling in its own right.

I advise you not to miss this if you haven't seen it, and to watch it with an open mind.