Film review of Alfonso Cuaron's Great Expectations.

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You have to give a film maker credit for exhibiting the necessary chutzpah to take one of the most beloved classics in the English language, Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, and transform it into a modern-day morality play/romance. Viewers who approach this motion picture with the mistaken expectation that it's going to be the kind of rigorously faithful adaptation that David Lean produced in 1946 are likely to be disappointed. Nevertheless, while Alfonso Cuaron's Great Expectations falls considerably short of being a definitive interpretation of the novel, it still offers an entertaining two hours.

Great Expectations is considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel. It is certainly among his darkest, even with the less-downbeat ending that the author's friends prompted him to include. Like Oliver Twist before it, Great Expectations draws heavily from events in the writer's own life, which in part explains its believability and strength of character. One of the book's chief themes – that of a poor boy crossing class barriers to pursue the girl of his dreams – offered Cuaron () and writer Mitch Glazer their biggest challenge. With the setting changed from 19th century England to contemporary Florida and New York, the social scale of Victorian England lost its validity. Surprisingly, however, the story survived the transition relatively unscathed.

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Even as the setting has changed, so have the names and occupations of many of the characters. The lead is no longer Pip; he's now called Finn, and is played by Ethan Hawke (with an assist from Jeremy Kissner as a ten-year old). Estella, the love of Finn's life, is still Estella, and she is portrayed by a radiant-yet-restrained Gwyneth Paltrow (and Raquel Beaudene at a younger age). Mad Miss Havisham has become the equally deranged Miss Dinsmore, who spends her days in a ruined house mourning a wedding that never took place. With Anne Bancroft in this part, it's ...

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