Great Expectations (dir. Alfonso Cuarón)

[swanflake]

Mentioning this film in the Best Dance Sequence thread made me want to start a thread about it.

Okay, granted, it certainly didn't do Charles Dickens' story justice, but the movie had great music, a really lavish production design, and a lot of sensual appeal, IMO.

Hawke and Paltrow (in the days before they got as ugly as they are now) didn't necessarily have the usual chemistry we're accustomed to seeing on-screen, but that appealed to me for some reason.

I think it's a really nice romance flick. What do you all think?

[Deleted]

Miss Paltrow was perfectly cast. She had the snotty, snobbish, humorless condescension down pat. But then that is her real character evidently.

I was surprised at how believeable Mr. Hawke's character was when he was the Florida coast fisherman. He had the scraggly, redneck, unshaven demeanour and carelessness perfectly presented. And he actually looked and acted like he was related to Uncle Joe (the Chris Cooper character) and raised by him.

I also liked Cuaron's use of greens in the film design. It's not the color that I would associate with a story about social climbing and broken hearts, but it was lovely to look at.

Surprisingly good movie, but I still prefer the 1946 Brit version. The social and money barriers seemed more defining and caging and despair inducing in that one.

And the ending of the 1998 version was untrue to what happened before. Pip and Estella never get back together again. She's so heartbreakingly unworthy of him.

[swanflake]

Bringing this thread up because huntergrayson mentioned the movie in the Avatar thread.

I think it ended way too abruptly. The falling action fell too fast. But otherwise the movie would've lasted way more longer than the filmmakers would've been comfortable with. Although I wish there could've been a way to have made the film resonate a little more in the last minutes before it ended.