Great Expectations (1989) Review

Before I start this Great Expectations 1989 review, I’d like to get a couple important things out of the way. Firstly, I would like an explanation from the period drama world as to why I was never told that this excellent mini-series existed? There are so many that you hear about all the time – Pride and Prejudice 1995, North and South ’04 – why isn’t the 1989 Great Expectations ever even mentioned?

Next: this mini-series is full to bursting-point with familiar actors. This will most likely be the only time you’ll ever see Colonel Fitzwilliam from Pride and Prejudice ’95, Gimli from The Lord of the Rings, Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps from Jeeves and Wooster, Admiral Satie from Star Trek, and Sir John Middleton from Sense and Sensibility 2008 all in the same movie.

I must confess that at first, knowing the usual quality of ’70s and ’80s BBC mini-series, I was afraid that the 1989 Great Expectations would be rather bad. But I was most pleasantly surprised. It was rather a silly fear, in any case, since this was probably just at the time when the BBC productions were getting better and this wasn’t even made by the BBC. But in any case, the production value was good. It didn’t look like it was filmed on a low-budget set, the camera work was good, the dialogue wasn’t cringe-worthy, the acting was good. All most satisfactory.

I had watched the 1946 movie of Great Expectations first, and while it was good on the whole, I wasn’t quite satisfied with its Pip. Apart from the fact that his adult actor looked about thirty years older than his child actor, I don’t think you got enough of a sense that Pip is really rather a jerk. Occasionally 1946 Pip would do a jerk-ish thing, but his overall vibe was that of a slightly weak but perfectly amiable sort of chap. That is not Pip. Pip should be a selfish, self-centered little blighter for about ninety percent of the story.

And I think Anthony Calf in the ’89 GE got that across perfectly. He was arrogant but insecure, he was self-centered, he was shallow and superficial…but then his character arc – well, arc-ed. He realized that he’d been arrogant, self-centered, shallow, and superficial. The last half hour or so of this GE felt much more sober than either of the other two GEs I’ve seen so far, and I think that’s a good thing. The reason it’s sober is because Pip is realizing how much his own choices have messed up his life.

The little fellow (what was his name…this is what IMDB is for…ah, lovely, Martin Harvey) who was child Pip was fine – he didn’t particularly stand out, but he wasn’t terrible. I’m all for cutting child actors some slack…seeing how they are children and all.

I’ll admit that I approached John Rhys-Davies as Joe with some trepidation. I’m not a huge fan of the LOTR movies, and one of the things I dislike about them is the over-comicalization of Gimli. I feared that Joe would suffer from a similar treatment.

But I was wrong. Quite wrong. Looks-wise John Rhys-Davies is not what I pictured for Joe when I read the book, but acting-wise he nailed it. I think he got across Joe’s humble, good-hearted, child-like, ‘gentle giant’ nature quite well indeed.

Rosemary McHale was, I’ll allow, rather an over-the-top Mrs. Joe. But I don’t know that she was any worse than the other Mrs. Joes I’ve seen, and at least she looks right. (If memory serves, her accent sounded far more American than British, so presumably she was one of the American actors (this is an American-British production, so it’s a mix of British and American actors) – I didn’t find that to detract too much, though.)

Jean Simmons made the best Miss Havisham I’ve yet seen; the Miss Havishams in both the 1946 and 1999 versions seemed a little too…normal. I didn’t find them especially creepy. Though creepier than the others, Jean Simmons still wasn’t quite as creepy as I imagine Miss Havisham. But then, maybe nobody would really be Miss Havisham to me but the Miss Havisham of my imagination. Oh, and SPOILERS the fire scene was very well-done and rather freaky, and I was very pleased that it felt like we got closure to the Pip and Miss Havisham relationship. In the 1946 one, the fire scene is the last we see of Miss Havisham – if memory serves they didn’t even include her helping Pip pay for Herbert’s position in that one – and the 1999 one butchered that scene completely and left no closure whatsoever. END SPOILERS

I also thought Kim Thomson was the best Estella I’ve seen as of yet. She is beautiful – rather important when one is playing Estella – and she did a very good job of getting across Estella’s coolness and self-possession and overall lack of emotion. I think in the 1999 version they were attempting to humanize Estella a bit, but that just made her personality confusing, in my opinion.

One rather strange thing is that they have the same actress play child-Estella and adult-Estella; they do this for Biddy too. In both cases I think this makes the dynamic very weird when Pip is a child, since both girls are obviously much older than he is…but ah well. Nothing in this world is perfect. You can just pretend they don’t look like adults.

Speaking of Biddy, I rather liked Susan Franklyn as Biddy. I had to warm to her a bit – she wasn’t at all how I pictured Biddy – but she was good. Emma Cunniffe’s Biddy in the 1999 version seemed too harsh and too 21st century (well, actually, since it was 1999 I suppose that would be very late 20th century), but Susan’s Biddy wasn’t. Like in the book, she gave Pip plenty of hints that he was being a jerk, but she wasn’t going to throw it in his face.

Now, as to Abel Magwitch. Anthony Hopkins was good – he did a good job, SPOILER his death was properly affecting END SPOILER – but I’m not sure he was quite right. My brother Noddy said he thought that he seemed almost too refined, and I think he was right. It felt almost as though his bad manners and unrefined speech and such were just an outer veneer. He seemed more like a gentleman than Compeyson did, methinks.

Adam Blackwood as Herbert Pocket was…Barmy. I’m sorry, but I simply cannot separate this man from Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps in my mind.

Nevertheless, I liked his Herbert quite a lot – he was friendly and pleasant and overflowing with good intentions and all in all everything that Herbert should be. The fact that he never quite stopped being Barmy to me didn’t ruin his Herbert at all.

Mr. Jaggers was not bad. He didn’t quite click for me; I think I had always pictured Jaggers as more snaky and ferrety. I actually can’t remember how much that’s from his description in the book and how much that is simply my imagination, though.

And I was so glad to see Wemmick and Miss Skiffins and the Aged P! Wemmick was not how I picture Wemmick, but he was vastly more Wemmicky than the 1946 Wemmick. And his house and the Aged P. were very satisfactory and adorable. So much better than that morose imposter parading about as the Aged P. in the 1999 version.

The script of the mini-series stuck very close to the book – the only plot point I can think of that they really changed was having the obnoxious boy Pip hired betray his and Herbert’s plans to Compeyson and Orlick. But the book doesn’t say that doesn’t happen, and they must have gotten the information somehow, so that doesn’t bother me much. A lot of the dialogue is straight from the book, and the bits that aren’t don’t sound jarring or out of place. And I so loved seeing little details or scenes from the book – like showing Matthew Pocket trying to lift himself up by his hair, or showing Sir John Trabb’s boy teasing Pip, or leaving in the scene with Drummle and Bentley and Herbert and Pip dining at Jaggers’ house and seeing Molly the housekeeper.

(Actually, there is one other thing I remember now that they changed: in the book, after Pip gets over his illness, his character arc seems to have pretty much completely taken place already. In this mini-series, it feels like he’s still working through some of his issues while he’s being nursed back to health. Again, though, that doesn’t bother me. If anything, it may feel a wee bit more realistic for his arc to take more time and be a bit messier.)

My one real complaint with this mini-series is that sometimes there’s a certain lack of subtlety. Mrs. Joe, for instance, was rather overdone for my taste; Drummle was too over-the-top-ly obnoxious in his first appearance. Similarly, the soundtrack was a little overdone and too much sometimes. In GE ’89’s defense, though, I must say that this lack of subtlety is something I notice in many mini-series (even in ones that I think highly of), and this one is far from the worst.

Now, I must touch on the ending, since the ending of Great Expectations is quite important. I, for one, prefer the ending Charles Dickens originally wrote, in which SPOILER Pip and Estella do not end up together, but we see that that’s how it should be, and we see that their experiences have matured them and made them become better people. END OF SPOILER I think that ending is much better and makes more sense.

This mini-series goes with the second ending – which I was expecting – but they did not turn it into a happy warm fuzzy Hollywood ending. I was coming to this fresh from the 1946 version, which is on the whole a very faithful (if condensed) adaption of the book…except for the last five minutes, which were rather dreadful. You know, just Hollywood being Hollywood. The 1999 version tries to blend Dickens’ two endings, but does so in such a way that it completely ruins the whole point of the original ending.  Neither of them come close to capturing the subtlety and maturity of either book ending.

This version, however, stuck almost word-for-word to the book’s second ending, and it was so refreshing, my friends. SORRY, ONE LAST SPOILER Yes, Pip and Estella are both single and we viewers know it’s likely they’ll end up together, but it’s made very clear that both have learned from their experiences. Both have matured. Both have realized that they were superficial, selfish people and are sorry for it. And, like the book, there are no explicit imminent wedding bells; when the credits roll, all we know for a fact is that Pip and Estella understand each other and are friends now. The rest is just implied. AHH THE SUBTLETY WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. It’s so good. END OF SPOILER

My verdict: I don’t know why the period drama world has meanly been keeping it a secret from me (must be natural wiciousness), but Great Expectations 1989 is an extremely good, well-done, faithful adaption of the book. Go watch it. Please. You’re welcome.

Have you seen the 1989 Great Expectations? What’s your favorite movie version of GE?