Great Expectations (2013)

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It seems like every year we get a new film based on the classic take by Charles Dickens, Great Expectations. There are so many versions, it is pointless to make another one. Apparently people disagreed though as we have another update, this time starring Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes. I adored the 1998 version even though it was critically panned. I cannot say the same about this movie. The performances were excellent and it has a majestic scope, but the narrative is just a little uneven for my taste.By now, we should all know the plot to the film. But in case this was someone's first big-screen adventure into the story, Mike Newell's film is about a boy named Pip who is given a chance at a gentleman's life in London thanks to a mysterious benefactor.As said before, the film does have excellent performances namely by our two British veterans in Carter and Fiennes. Carter makes an excellent Miss Havisham and she is delightfully weird, just like in most Tim Burton movies. Fiennes also gives all he got as the convict Pip meets in the beginning. Jeremy Irvine, known for his role in War Horse, does a solid job and same goes for Holliday Granger as Estella, Pip's romantic interest. I also thought Jason Flemying was excellent as Joe, and the scenes between Joe and Pip were quite powerful.Overall, the latest Great Expectations remake tries it very best to succeed thanks to the lavish production design and it excellent performances, but it fails to live up to previous films. It is certainly not bad, but it doesn't bring anything new to the table. That being said, it still is good to watch. They do a good job in recreating nineteenth century London and the countryside. It shows how different life was compared to today. Not a bad film, but not a great one either. Perhaps no more adaptations in the near future, studios. I rate this film 7/10.

it has a special beauty. far to be perfect, far to be convincing at whole, it has the science to use the kitsch and the light, the dialog and the details in wise manner. and that performance is its high virtue. old stereotypes - Helena Bonham Carter using Tim Burton recipes, remarkable parts - Jeremy Irvine as one of the most good Pip and the nuances of Magwitch by Joseph Fiennes, the crumbs of sentimentalism and the air of novel does it more than a correct adaptation. a beautiful film in profound sense. for the romanticism, for the links between characters, for the inspired way to tell the story. sure, nothing spectacular. sure, almost nothing new. but useful for remember the spirit of a great novel.

Far from a terrible film but rather disappointing too, seeing as this did have a lot going for it. Plus the trailer actually looked really good. There are certainly some good things, even when a film or series doesn't quite work there are not many times where there is nothing redeeming about it. This Great Expectations does have a fair few merits and the best of these merits actually come off quite well. The costumes and sets are both beautiful and evocative, and the reuniting of Pip and Estella has some very clever lighting, there is great atmosphere and poetry in this moment. The music is haunting, is fitting for the tone of the film and doesn't overbear things too much. The opening scene is very atmospherically effective also, though the adaptation that did this scene best and quite possibly without equal is David Lean's.And while the acting is inconsistent, there are some very good performances, and actually most of the performances fall into the very good category. The star was Ralph Fiennes, his Magwitch was both creepy and tragic, in the earlier scenes Fiennes is chilling but later on he is very likable and you feel pity for the character. Helena Bonham Carter really gives her all to Miss Havisham, wonderfully bitter and dramatic, if physically a little too on the voluptuous side for a character that is described the complete opposite in the book. Jason Flemying is an excellent and dignified Joe, Robbie Coltrane is firm and somewhat larger than life as Jaggers and Olly Alexander's Herbert Pocket is eccentric and quaint as well as earnest and upbeat, a very engaging performance of a potentially dull character.Jeremy Irvine looks the part for Pip but his acting style came across as too overwrought and too innocent, while Holly Grainger looks radiant but not cold enough for Estella. They are marginally better than the miscast leads in the respectable but flawed 2011 BBC adaptation, but only just. David Walliams mugs his way through the role of Uncle Pumblechook and painfully so, it may work for Little Britain but it is completely wrong here. Toby Irvine and Helena Barlow are very competent and work well together, if lacking that extra spark to make them truly memorable, Barlow also could have a little more spiteful.Aside from these problematic casting choices there are other reasons why this adaptation of Great Expectations fell short. It is a very difficult story to adapt, Dickens generally is difficult to adapt, but the story is not very engaging here, though there are some bright spots like the opening scene. The pacing can get tedious while some of the details are rushed through and under-explained, the Pip, Estella and Miss Havisham scenes veer towards the absurd rather than the tense and the scenes between Irvine and Holliday don't have that much pulse. The ending is also very badly bungled.The script can get rather trite and wordy with some awkward tonal shifts. And while the period detail is great and there are moments where the lighting is clever, the way the film looks is rather too grim, too much of the Harry Potter and Tim-Burton-at-his-most-Gothic vibe. Mike Newell does deserve some credit for bringing out the story's dark approach but too often it is too emphasised so the film generally lacks life, and consequently the dark obsession that is at the heart of this great story comes across as rather flat. Overall, a long way from bad but not as great as it could have been, personally this was a mixed feelings sort of reaction towards the film. 5/10 Bethany Cox

1812, England. The young orphan Pip, who lives in the countryside with her sister's family , after giving food to a fugitive which is then recaptured by the guards, is summoned to the residence of a rich lady. She lives without ever looking at the sunlight after a sentimental trauma and wants Pip to play along with another girl, Estella, who lives in the castle of which he falls madly in love. Decades later Pip will be informed that an unknown benefactor will take care of him and he has to go to London to become a gentleman. It will be in the big city , once accepted the new status, where the many mysteries will begin to be revealed. Mike Newell, director of Four Weddings and a Funeral ( and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) adapts a script author of One Day ( book and film) from " Great Expectations " by Charles Dickens. The melange of styles , influences, personal inclinations and strengths of each of the heads that have made possible this new Great Expectations is aimed at classical and faithful rendition of the book but ends up taking a turn more romantic than historical , more centered on the stories love ( that of Pip and Estella to Miss Havisham that ended badly ) and personal relationships ( the bromance deep and emotional between Pip and the blacksmith Joe Gargery ) rather than the interweaving of the plot, the action of the final or contrast among the many classes that were being consolidated in England in the first half of 800 . The Jeremy Irvine's Pip , however, is not an ambitious climber as in the book but more an astonished witness to the horrors of the fashionable upper classes . Newell removes the voice-over that adaptations in the past had often translated the first-person narrative of the book and move a few episodes from forward to reverse over time while remaining very faithful to the book as a whole, it contains the most important phrases along with large chunks . What crease instead is what he does best , i.e. telling lightly ( and apparently without giving importance ) the way in which feelings affect the actions of the characters . Everything that happens in his Great Expectations is caused by an exaggerated sentimentality (both infinite gratitude , a deep hatred , dignity incorruptible or a undying love ) , also plans warps with more mathematical calculation , but this is never the center of the film, as a natural order of things that rule life. Without providing scenes of great impact ( like the one where Pip let the light into the decadent residence to free Estella Havisham , closing the large version of the 1946 David Lean ) this latter recurrence , because of its sentimental push, aims more on the landscapes and characters, like photography and acting, focusing on the actors and the places in which they are added to give a new meaning to an old story. The result is a great illustration and a small film. There are some of the most significant places in which two sincere friends can rest caressed by the wind , dark fortresses of cobwebs from which sprout angelic faces and crannies of the city of fetid wood ready to become the metropolis of steel, but the story is weak and the dynamism the book is lost in the continuous chase dismayed faces of the actors rather than the many twist of history.Overall an enjoyable movie, very well acted and beautifully shot. (p.s. you will definitely enjoy it more if you haven't read the C. Dickens book)