I like this recent, surprisingly short (given the length of the novel) adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop. There are a fair number of negative reviews and comments here and I really can't argue with them. Film is so much a matter of taste. I caught this one at the right time. It drew me in.
What impressed me most perhaps was less the story itself than the film's evocation of early 19th century London. Director Brian Percival and his associates deserve a lot of praise for the ambiance; and the actors and their costumes were well matched. This is (for me) a rare occasion as one of the reasons I seldom watch recent adaptations of classic fiction is that everything looks too modern; the actors don't look at ease in the setting; and there's always something contemporary feeling threatening to take the movie over entirely. I didn't get this here.
In terms of style and content this version of The Old Curiosity Shop evoked memories of the series of low budget horror films Val Lewton produced in Hollywood back some seventy years ago. It's not a horror picture, but what happens to the children in the story is often horrifying; and the tone is nearly seductively dark, with hints of all manner of perversion lurking on the sidelines. At its best the film plays like a first rate B movie. I mean that as a compliment. It's very good, not great, but then I don't sense that it was aiming that high.
Oops! The story. It's awfully complicated and would take nine more paragraphs to properly summarize. It's basically about how greed and poverty destroyed the innocence of children in the London of Dickens' era; and how good men doing bad things can do as much harm as bad men doing same. In other words, to paraphrase a famous thinker, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing about it. Worse yet, if good men aren't pro-active in their virtue, vigilant about it, as the grandfather in this story is not, the terms of their lives shall be dictated by men up to no good. This is a lesson worth learning.
