Great Expectations

I was anticipating this show with great expectations. I circled the day on my calendar. I was looking forward to the deep, colorful characters and masterful story telling and beauty of Charles Dickens. Instead, I found the outline of Dickens' story clothed in a gaudy and perverse costume. I was shocked by the steep incline into evil and darkness. I suggest that rather than having your soul assaulted, tuck a copy of the book Great Expectations under your arm and head for a quiet place to read. Even better, find a friend to go with you and take turns reading out loud. Enjoy the gift of Charles Dickens in all its glory.

Several of my favorite actors are in this adaptation, and I really wanted to love it. With every episode, I hated this version more and more. The entire thing strayed so far from the book and other adaptations. I get the creative license and interpreting it in a unique way, but my great expectations for this adaptation did not come to fruition. I think my disappointment was in the Pip storyline most of all. There were a few things I did like about this interpretation but it was from other characters mostly. I know Great Expectations is generally depressing, but this version was so extremely depressing and full of heartache and negative scenes (even gross scenes), that it really turned me off. I will not be watching this version again (I have previous versions on DVD).

Wonderfully shot but the acting, the story and the relationships between the characters are just.. well.. boring. Everything feels very wooden and dull, there's no drive behind the characters and they all feel as though they have no depth. They all talk without saying or meaning anything. Like they've just read the lines from the page. It all just feels off and not in a good way, almost strangely sanitized and two-dimentional. It's a shame really because the cast is very impressive. I was looking forward to seeing the new Havisham and Estella but I could barely get past the stiff relationship of Pip and his sister and brother-in-law.

I had higher hopes for this as I adored the 2011 version but it's just failed to grab me.

Despite the casting I think you could produce this story with donkeys if it was told and presented well. I'not one to say what dicken's intended or meant but I've been watching this story since I was a kid and so far I don't see any of that in this series. Great cast. How can you say anything bad about oliva colman. It's not her fault they made her look like a fool. She doesn't look like a woman jilted and aged unwell hanging on to the past. She looks more like the female ghost of xmas but made up for holloween. As I recall the story was mostly about envy, especially the envy for something out of your reach which ultimately creates the drama which makes the story timeless. Most of us can identify but it's rarely in productions these days because so much of the culture is narcissistic. So far I'm not getting any of that but a bunch of characters riffing on each other with their own silly purpose. I can't give the film a 0 because there's so much professional effort they got right but they forgot to tell a story, or whatever they're selling, not interested.

It's okay for a movie or show to depart from the book it's based on, but if it does then don't we want it to at least do something interesting with the differences? If this series chooses to show Pip as a moody romantic teenager rather than as a child, then couldn't he at least be given some personality? The screenwriters do keep some bits of Dickens' writing -- which stand out from the rest of the wooden dialog -- but otherwise there's no individuality in the characters: they all speak more or less the same way, even those (such as Joe and Pumblechook) from completely different backgrounds. The show is all atmosphere and scenery at the expense of acting and story.