Review of Great Expectations (2013) by Koz — 02 Dec 2013

I first read the simplified version of this novel when I was 8. I liked it so much that I read the unabridged version a few years later. It is by far my favorite Dickens novel, so needless to say, I had "great Expectations" when I went to see this movie.

Rarely does a movie live up to the book. Most of the time, when you go to the theater to see an adaptation, you come home very disappointed. (Like the time I saw the latest rendition of Les Miserables, but that's another story).

But this movie did not disappoint me. At all. All the crucial points in the story were given the appropriate level of prominence. All the characters were just as I pictured them all those years back (except, maybe, for Miss Havisham, who I imagined to be more subdued. But I'm not saying Helen Bonham-Carter did a bad job there). Everything, really, was just as I saw in my mind when reading the book.

So I put this among the best adaptations, along with Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I know this will never get the amount of attention TLOTR got, but if you are a fan of Dickens, or classic novels in general, I strongly believe that you must see this movie.