It was a regular Harry Potter reunion at the movies today – saw the latest film version of Great Expectations directed by Mike Newell (… and the Goblet of Fire director) and starring Voldemort, Hagrid, and Bellatrix (Ralph Fienes, Robbey Coltrain, and Helena Bonham-Carter). This remake is set in the 1800s like the book and is going out of its way to be historically accurate – meaning everything is slightly shabby, dirty, drab, and muddy. This film version is accurate to my wobbly memory of the book (which I read 20+ years ago) which is fine as far as it goes. The first half of the movie is really good but then the second half just keeps going and going and starts feeling fractured… which is either due to the narrative structure of the book or possibly bad film-making decisions. The girl playing Estella as an adult (woah – just looked her up – name is Holiday Grainger… talk about your Harry Potter connections) is really quite good, so is Fiennes as Magwitch. Bonham-Carter as Havisham gets to play yet another completely mental basketcase but she’s good at that so it works. I guess my mental image of the character is more aged but that’s probably good genes on her part. So, overall, the movie gets draggy with pace issues but is a very good production that’s well acted.

Score: 75