Great Expectations Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Great Expectations Blu-ray Movie Review

Fear the lady in white

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf April 14, 2012

Published in 1861, “Great Expectations” is one of the most famous works to emerge from author Charles Dickens, sustaining for 150 years as a devastating portrait of emotional frigidity and wild swings of fate. The source material has also found itself the subject of numerous film and television adaptations, each challenged to capture the writing’s grim tone while servicing the needs of short run times and star demands. Perhaps most famously, the story was transformed into a highly beloved 1946 David Lean feature (I’m also partial to an ambitious 1998 modernization starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow). Attempting to return to well-worn literary ground, the BBC brings “Great Expectations” back to the small screen, laboring to restore Dickens’s narrative scope and bleak sensibilities to a visual medium. The picture is immensely successful on multiple levels of execution, conjuring a forbidding realm of shattered lives and titular promise, carefully detailing a period of decay in such a vivid manner, every Blu-ray copy should come with a tetanus shot. With an impeccable cinematographic effort and a fabulously talented cast filling out all roles great and small, the material shines once again, convincing with its passions and its madness, inching closer to a definitive version of a tale it seems every creative type would like to take a crack at.

An orphan left in the care of his abusive sister (Claire Rushbrook) and kindly brother-in-law Joe (Shaun Dooley), young Pip (Oscar Kennedy) is struggling with life, holding to a low ambition to become a blacksmith like Joe. One foggy afternoon, Pip is accosted by brutish prison escapee Magwitch (Ray Winstone), who requests assistance to file off his shackles. When Pip provides more care than necessary, Magwitch is stunned, soon recaptured and pulled back to prison, leaving the boy overwhelmed by the experience. A short time later, Pip is summoned to the squalid estate of Miss Havisham (Gillian Anderson), a ghostly woman abandoned on her wedding day years ago, who requests the boy’s presence to help train her adoptive daughter Estella (Izzy Meikle-Small) in the ways of cold-heartedness. Falling in love with Estella, who struggles with her own suppressed feelings, Pip is left a wreck when Havisham eventually separates the pair, forcing Pip to return to his life as an apprentice blacksmith, tormented by the jealous Orlick (Jack Roth). Years later, Pip (now played by Douglas Booth) is informed by lawyer Jaggers (David Suchet) that he’s been gifted a fortune by a mysterious benefactor, asked to abandon his commoner life for one of gentlemanly pursuits. Accepting the offer, Pip befriends Herbert Pocket (Harry Lloyd), revisits Estella (Vanessa Kirby), and clashes with Bentley Drummle (Tom Burke), a lout who’s competing for Estella’s hand in marriage. Also returning to the fold is Magwitch, bringing with him a host of troubles threatening to end Pip’s good fortunes before they have a chance to progress.

Originally broadcast over three episodes, “Great Expectations” yearns to fully encapsulate the Dickensian experience. With an ample amount of screen time (176 minutes) to flesh out the conflicts and numerous turns of fate, the production is able to achieve a sense of life in motion, fulfilling Pip’s epic arc from boy to man in a wholly satisfying manner, while also making room for a plethora of supporting characters and complicated motivations, all competing for screentime. Director Brian Kirk manages the material smartly, working with a graceful script by Sarah Phelps. The flow of events almost comes across effortless, providing a nuanced understanding of personality and position while engaging in more heated, obvious theatrics befitting a BBC drama, most centered on Orlick’s designs of revenge. With his rotting face and intense hatred of Pip, the ghoul is a broadly imagined villain, even taking on Gollum-esque characteristics as the program unfolds. While the film does develop a few cartoonish peaks of antagonism, it’s only of mild concern, with the majority of writing finding a defined balance between anguish and refinement.

To offset any stiff-upper-lip habits that might come to derail the production, the 2011 “Great Expectations” carries a pronounced sense of decomposition. It’s a repulsive choice that provides this adaptation with an exceptional fingerprint, taking cues of disrepair from Dickens to the extreme, with particular emphasis on Miss Havisham’s Satis House estate, a once distinguished home that stopped accepting life years ago when the owner was humiliated by her runaway groom. Now draped in cobwebs and shellacked with mold, the residence is turned into a supporting player by Kirk, who lingers on the filth and the fury, merging Havisham’s mental breakdown with the physical decay of her dwelling. The images here are haunting, greatly accentuating the character’s devious plans of revenge on the opposite sex (Kirk equates butterfly metamorphosis and lepidopterology’s cruelty to Pip’s awakening) while underlining her psychological fracture -- she’s a decomposing queen inside an inhospitable castle of memories, choosing to dwell in her own shock, which has perverted into revenge, with Estella raised to be her ultimate weapon.

The environmental misery extends to Pip’s family home, located in the middle of a muddy marsh, and to London, where the line between the privileged and the poor is explored through dank rooms and soiled prisons. Character make-up is also worth noting, finding Magwitch’s face a road map of experience and survival, while Havisham is a crumbling skeleton of a woman, essentially held together with fabric as her skin peels away (Jaggers also participates in self-punishment, with an OCD concentration on fingernail cleanliness). Anderson’s performance here is exemplary, contributing striking work as the mad spinster. Her way with the physicality of the role is stunning, using a horrifying exterior to set the tone for her predatory scenes. There’s sympathy for this demented architect of despair, but there are layers of dead skin and bitter intentions to peel away to find it. It’s a challenge Anderson masterfully manipulates.

Great Expectations Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The AVC encoded image (1.78:1 aspect ratio) presentation maintains the chilling atmosphere constructed by the production. While flashes of bold color manage to work their way into the program, it's largely a bloodless affair, with a hefty push of whites and grays to feel out the period mood and Havisham's wedding day nightmare. Hues are strong and expressive. Fine detail is superb and quite important to the viewing experience. With flaky, rotten, and burned skin, the HD event offers a clean look at the stellar make-up work, revealing levels of decay that assist in characterization (Anderson's chapped lips are a particular curiosity). Degrees of housing decomposition also make a clear impression. Skintones are deliberately ashen. Shadow detail is satisfactory, keeping backgrounds available for survey. There are some minor ghosting and banding issues, but nothing too distracting. Mercifully, the nuanced cinematography is preserved well here.

Great Expectations Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 2.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix is a sedate listening experience that emphasizes the performances in a comfortable manner. Accents are easily understood, along with dramatic tones, never hitting any shrill notes of discontent. Voices are full and direct. There's also a heightened sense of breathing from certain distressed characters that's tastefully included. Scoring is supportive, taking off on its own as intended, though it never intrudes on the action. There's no sense of dimension here, with the track carrying a frontal power that doesn't quite do justice to the cavernous buildings on display, but the mix finds a stable presence to carry the story.

Great Expectations Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There's no supplementary material on this disc.

Great Expectations Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Any sense of surprise has been bled out of the material long ago, though this "Great Expectations" find a commendable amount of emotional turmoil and scenes of pure intimidation, captured directly in the troubling relationship between Pip and bully Drummel. The adaptation finds a compelling tone of melodrama and threat, creating renewed interest in the story and its complex resolution. The latest "Great Expectations" rejuvenates the work, remaining entertaining while shedding new light on established characters.