GREAT EXPECTATIONS |
| CREDITS: Director: Alfonso Cuaron. Cast: Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hank Azaria,
Anne Bancroft & Robert De Niro. USA 1997 (15). INTRODUCTION: Finally released, delayed from April to avoid that other mainstream American frock flick Titanic, this is of course an updating of Dickens' classic novel. Does that sound like a horrendously bad idea to anyone else? SYNOPSIS: Young orphan Finn leaves the swamps to pursue a career as an artist amongst the bright lights of New York, where he encounters his childhood sweetheart, thanks to the assistance of a mysterious benefactor. The mysterious benefactor being the part of Dickens' novel that survived the updating. REVIEW: Updating Dickens is always dangerous as it his grasp of the people and times that surrounded him that make his works so appealing, his stories are at best weak, with an over reliance on coincidence that is common among literature at the time, and so the decision to retain the story and dispose of the characterisation and setting is perhaps as misguided as Bill Murray's "Scrooged". Hawke is blandly appealing in the lead role, Paltrow is enigmatically bland as the object of his affection, Bancroft is frighteningly deranged and De Niro is still desperately searching for the defining role of his post 70s career. Uninspired updating of the Dickensian classic manages moderate entertainment among only those who enter the cinema with no great expectations. Mutt's Rating: ** |