Great Expectations
1st December 2012
Husband likes to do things in the correct order: read the book, see the film. And now that you can download a lot of the classics onto your Kindle for free I foresee a number of visits to the cinema to see period adaptations.
So, off to our little, local, art house cinema. Sounds cute, I know. And it could be if they could just stop getting everything wrong. Every time I go, some sort of slap-stick calamity hinders our enjoyment of the entertainment on offer. Yesterday, we arrived to discover that we were half an hour early because the time that the website stated was inaccurate. I paid £15.60 for two tickets, YES, £15.60 for two tickets!! And made my way to the bar to kill time that could have been spent on something other than parting with £6 for a small glass of Sauvignon*, YES, £6.00 on a small glass of wine!! The bar was so cold that I could see my breath. I put my complaints to the girl behind the bar; said, “Gosh, isn’t it cold in here?” and “Gosh, what expensive wine,” and felt like the oldest, most curmudgeonly cinema-goer in the world. She said sorry in a vague way, said that people kept going outside and letting the warmth out. Nobody went out whilst I was there and there seemed to be no source of heat present. An elderly customer sat by the bar in sheepskin coat and red beret. We smiled at each other, as if united in a tremendous effort to enjoy ourselves.
Still, with the gift of time came the chance to reflect on what we were about to see. Why always Great Expectations, I asked myself. Why not A Tale of Two Cities or Dombey, for a change? Well, I think Mike Newell answers this question well in his adaptation of the book. We can overlook the numerous details of the hard-to-believe plot; we can overlook the obsequiousness and downright blandness of Pip because what this tale has, or rather, what it is, is a string of utterly striking and compelling images, more so than any of Dickens’ other works. Newell knows this and has not tried to mess with the origins of the book’s power. The opening scene is everything that it should be, the marshes stretching out to a misty nothingness, a lone child clearing moss from his parents’ headstone. It is perfect, I thought.
Indeed, what Newell’s film does in its honesty to Dickens’ novel is it brings us a greater understanding of Pip. If Newell’s film is original in any way, and I fear it may be criticised for not being, it is in this power to make us understand and not just pity the character of Pip. When the young Pip, played by Toby Irvine, gives food and file to Magwitch, we see here that it is not just out of fear that he does so but out of a sense of moral rightness. This raises the character of Pip in our estimation as he is not simply a receptacle for the whims of others. As Pip and Joe travel across the marshes, joining in the soldiers’ search for the convict, Pip whispers to Joe, “I hope we don’t find him,” with which Joe agrees. Joe Gargery, played here by Jason Flemyng, is the book’s moral compass but in seeing the two characters together like this, united, not just as victims of Mrs Gargery but as good souls in a cruel world we do not give up on Pip later in the film as can happen for readers of the book. Here, we believe that he has not strayed too far from his roots. The older Pip, played by Jeremy Irvine, convinces far more as a blacksmith than as a would-be gentleman and for this we like him much more.
Satis House was beautifully Gothic and the vines growing around it gave a wonderful intimation of fairytale to the scenes outside. Husband and I disagreed on Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Haversham. He thought that she was too wholesome to play such a twisted shrew but I thought that our National, Gothic treasure was just ripe for the part. She hints just enough at menopausal madness to fully embody the despair of Miss Haversham. However, the film’s greatest travesty comes in the burning of said character. Who does not see it in their mind’s eye? The white dress going up in flames, the darkened rooms suddenly illuminated; these are such dramatic images that it struck me as gratuitous that we should then be exposed to her charred, dying flesh as she squeals her way towards her fate. This was not necessary, Mr Newell but thankfully your only slip.
Casting was inspired without missing the mark. Robbie Coltrane as Jaggers was a surprise but a successful one. I suppose I think of Jaggers as being physically spiky and not so rotund but such is the Scottish actor’s talent that he embodied the part perfectly; his meanness of spirit and rigid self-control were portrayed convincingly. Olly Alexander was superlative as Herbert Pocket; played as if the character had jumped straight off the pages of our imagination and onto the screen. David Walliams as Pumblechook was suitably revolting. My only criticism of casting was that Ben Lloyd-Hughes as Bentley Drummle was far too attractive; if I was Estella I wouldn’t have put up much of a fight.
The pace of the film was mercifully swift. Before we have time to be bored of Pip’s exploits in London, Ralph Fiennes’s Magwitch appears again to call proceedings to their inevitable denouement. Fiennes does not play a pathetic culprit as is often the case in adaptations but brings a quiet elegance to the part. We see his devotion to Pip as a supreme act of selflessness which has the effect of finally enabling Pip to grow into the decent man that he promises at the beginning of the tale. When he dies in prison with Pip at his side I felt genuinely moved.
To conclude I would say that this adaptation was visually superb and that the casting was effective. I hope now never to see another adaptation of Great Expectations. Let this be enough. Oh, and one last thing: Wemmick’s drawbridge. I loved this; perhaps the greatest achievement of the film!
*I do not live in London
