Great Expectations | | Cast : | Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow | | Director : | Alfonso Cuarón | | Studio : | Twentieth Century Fox | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 30, 1998 | | DVD Released Date : | June 07, 2005 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 04, 2005 | | Summary | Just don't think about the title too much. | Content
 | Great Expectations is obviously not a direct adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, and it was a bad idea to give it the same title. One of the best things about the books was its constantly twisting and turning plot, but its complexity, I would think, makes it a very difficult story to adapt on film. This version focuses mainly on one aspect of the novel, the relationship between Estella and Pip (or Finn, as he is called here.)The film is different enough that it should be considered a separate story. The tale of Pip and his social climb is updated, which really isn't the problem because it is such a classic story. Except Pip is now an artist, which provides the most likely way for someone from a poor Florida fishing village to quickly become a wealthy member of the New York City elite.
Visually, the movie is beautiful. The color green is everywhere: the color of money, the color of jealousy, or maybe the director just likes green. Miss Havisham (called Miss Dismoore in this movie) and her mansion are everything you could imagine from the orginal book, just in a warmer climate. As far as the characters go, Anne Bancroft gives an incredible performance as Miss Havisham/Dismoore--vicious and weird and delusional. The actors are all very talented, and the cinematography is lush, but the longer the movie goes on, the less developed the storyline gets. Not enough time was spent on explaining events or further devloping the characters' relationships to one another because too much time is spent on Finn and Estella's cycle of sexual longing and emotional abandon. The ending, while faithful to the novel, does not provide any answers to anything. Those who have read the book can guess why things turned out the way they did, but a film should be able to tell a story on its own.
This version of Great Expectations feels a lot like a foreign film, with its story of complicated love and its artistic visuals and music. It feels like the director of this movie is in fact a European or possibly Latin American filmmaker, and probably an accomplished one. People who love foreign films would enjoy this movie, or at least appreciate it. But overall, it has a lot of potential at its beginning, and by the end, it's just weak. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 02, 2005 | | Summary | FAN-TIZZLE | Content
| i have yet to see a movie with ethan hawk that i don't like. so i loved this movie. robert deniero is as always an awesome bad/good guy in this movie. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 04, 2005 | | Summary | A Great Love Story That is Only Dreamt About | Content
| A brilliant story about a young boy, Finn, who falls in love with a young girl by name of Estella the moment he sees her. After years of spending time with her, she leaves in the midst of their young love, leaving Finn without explanation. A true love story about a young boy who eventually grows up still searching, still dreaming of the love that left him. Chasing her around, he meets her again, to only show yet his love for her. Beautiful but yet realistic sense of love, though rarely seen, the movie brings out what we often forget the difficulties of love. Ethan Hawke does a great job portraying the character of Finn, as well for Paltrow for Estella. Being a big movie fan and follower, I have seen this movie many times, and highly recommend it to those who are romantics. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 16, 2005 | | Summary | Great Expectations Meets Great Expectations! | Content
| This movie was a great telling of the original Charles Dickens story. I loved this movie I thought it was well done, with great cast and good moving cinematic feel.
Some situations in the film are presented as memories - the way the central figure, Finnegan Bell (Ethan Hawke) recalls events many years later. At a Florida fishing village, eight-year-old orphan Finn Bell (Jeremy James Kissner), talented at art, is left in the care of his sister and her husband, Joe (Chris Cooper). One day, Finn helps a chained, escaped convict who appears in the surf. On other days, he visits Paradiso Perduto, where he plays with young Estella (Raquel Beaudene), niece of the mansion's colorful, flamboyant, and extremely wealthy owner, Ms. Dinsmoor (Anne Bancroft), who parallels the novel's tragic Miss Havisham, a woman jilted at the altar and left emotionally scarred and mentally imbalanced. As Ms. Dinsmoor watches Finn draw a portrait of Estella, she plots to mold Estella into a hard woman capable of destroying men.
In a flash forward to the '90s, Finn (Hawke) and Estella (Gwyneth Paltrow), now in their late teens, re-create the water-fountain kiss of their childhood, but Estella vanishes, breaking Finn's heart to such a degree that he doesn't draw or paint for seven years, choosing to eke out a marginal existence with his uncle Joe (after Finn's sister abandons the two). Then Manhattan art representative Jerry Ragno (Josh Mostel) turns up with a startling offer - if Finn will return to painting and relocate in New York, Ragno will give him a one-man show. With an apparent assist from Ms. Dinsmoor, Finn makes the move and begins his new life with great expectations and a deadline of 10 weeks to complete the necessary paintings.
When Finn next encounters Estella, she has a wealthy boyfriend, Walter (Hank Azaria). As Finn once again becomes entranced by Estella, he also begins to question exactly how his life is being manipulated. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 10, 2004 | | Summary | Dickens Not by the Book, But by the Heart | Content
| This film loosely follows the plotline of Dickens' classic novel of the same name, but with a modern twist. Pip, called Finn in the movie is cast as an artist from Florida whose benefactor sends him to New York to become a great artist. His love interest in Estella (played spectacularly by Gwyneth Paltrow) is expanded to include some steamy scenes: Finn painting her naked, and later having sex with her, which go far beyond the scope of Dickens' book. It all culminates with Finn and Estella on the beach of Ms. Dinsmoor's house coming together at last (which is pretty close to the book). One must approach this film as a modern adaptation of a classic book that does not aim to replicate the text by the numbers, but rather by the heart of the story. As such, the film has value when taken in that context. It must also be noted that Robert DeNiro's subway scene, when he reveals to Finn that he is his benefactor, is one of DeNiro's best performances. Truly moving! That said, this film is worth more than a cursory viewing. |
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