Fingersmith

While the American made-for-TV movie continues its tradition of numbing mediocrity, the British keep producing literate, well-made dramas like Fingersmith, a delicious and daring three-hour adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Sarah Waters, which was short-listed for the prestigious Booker Prize in 2003. Painstakingly adapted by Peter Ransley and featuring a gifted cast of rising young actors (plus a pair of seasoned British co-stars), it's a purely Dickensian tale of Victorian London with an added ingredient—lesbian passion—that Dickens could never have explored. That's part of Waters' genius, injecting a damning critique of moral and sexual hypocrisy into a story that could easily be taking place just around the corner from Little Dorritt and Oliver Twist. Here, resourceful grown orphan Sue Trinder (Sally Hawkins) is lured into a conniving scheme by a con man ironically known as "Gentleman" (Rupert Evans) to bilk Maud Lilly (Elaine Cassidy), a wealthy heiress who reads and catalogues Victorian-era pornographic literature for her lascivious and eccentrically fastidious uncle (Charles Dance). The elaborate con game is actually a scam within a scam, masterminded by the devious Mrs. Sucksby (Imelda Staunton), but the powerful attraction between Sue and Maud throws everything splendidly off-kilter, forcing a showdown that makes all of the familiar Dickensian ingredients (a Gothic mansion, wretched poverty, insane asylums, and pickpockets—i.e., “fingersmiths”) seem freshly revitalized. Highly recommended. (J. Shannon)