Great Expectations (1998, Ethan Hawke) Classic Film Review 842

Here’s director Alfonso (Gravity) Cuarón’s flashily filmed 1998 American revised and modernised version of the Charles Dickens novel, aimed accurately in style and tone at pop-video teenagers.

There’s surprising, but largely successful casting in Ethan Hawke as Pip (here called Finn), Gwyneth Paltrow as Estella, Anne Bancroft as Miss Havisham (here called Ms Nora Dinsmore) and Robert De Niro as the mysterious escaped convict Magwich (here called prisoner Arthur Lustig). The hapless Finn is now a painter in New York pursuing his unrequited childhood love, the haughty Estella.

Screenwriter Mitch Glazer’s revisionist screenplay alienated a lot of people and the movie never really found its intended young audience. But it’s a likeable experiment and it’s still interesting, careful, pleasing work from Cuarón, his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and his impressive group of actors.

Cuarón tells an interviewer in 2014 he ‘detests’ it. ‘Have you seen it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Good, you are a lucky woman.’

(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 842 derekwinnert.com