Name: Retro Film Review: Great Expectations (1998)
Item: Great Expectations
Rating: 40
Author: @drax

(source:tmdb.org)

For most people in today's world, the only way to become familiar with great works of literature is through films. Unfortunately, most literature classics are set in distant time periods, making their screen adaptations too expensive for producers or too incomprehensible for the audience. Hollywood often tries to circumvent this by changing the setting of the novels, sometimes with great success. Great Expectations, the 1998 screen version of the famous novel by Charles Dickens, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, was not among the successful ones.

Scriptwriter Mitch Glazer changed Dickens' original 19th-century English setting to present-day America. The plot begins in 1970s Florida, where 11-year-old orphan Finnegan Bell (played by Jeremy James Kissner) lives with her sister's boyfriend Joe (played by Chris Cooper). Finnegan's hobby is painting, and one day, while seeking inspiration, he stumbles upon escaped convict Arthur Lustig (played by Robert De Niro) and helps him break free from shackles. Later, Joe takes Finnegan to the estate of Ms. Nora Dinsmore (played by Anne Bancroft), the richest woman in Florida who went mad after her fiancé left her thirty years ago. The only company for the mad woman in her castle are cats and her 10-year-old niece Estella (played by Racquel Baudene). Many years later, Estella (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) goes to Paris, while Finnegan (played by Ethan Hawke) becomes a fisherman. A letter from a mysterious benefactor brings Finnegan to New York, allowing him to pursue his dream of an artist career. There, Finnegan becomes successful but encounters Estella, who is about to marry rich Walter Plane (played by Hank Azaria), reminding him that he has always loved her.

The original novel primarily dealt with themes of growing up and overcoming class limits, while the romance was nothing more than a sideshow. Unfortunately, Mitch Glazer, like in the disastrous Scrooged, shows an inability to spot the most important and most universal elements of Dickens' text. The script almost exclusively concentrates on the romance, with other subplots being untouched or, at times, rather unbelievable. Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón (who would later become famous with Y tu mamá también) does not pay much attention to the script and instead concentrates on keeping the audience's attention with splendid visuals. This is successful in the first part of the film that takes place in Florida, but not in the second part that takes place in New York and drowns itself in sentimental clichés. On the other hand, Great Expectations benefits from a very talented cast, especially Gwyneth Paltrow in one of her most icy and most erotic incarnations. Anne Bancroft also leaves a good impression as a pathetic woman-scarecrow. Although watchable, Great Expectations is far below the standards of David Lean's 1946 classic version. For all those who wanted an adaptation worthy of a literary classic, expectations were not met.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on March 25th 2004)