Great Expectations

The newest made-for-BBC incarnation of this Charles Dickens classic plays more like gothic horror story than morality tale, at least in the opening hour of this three-part production, as young Pip grows up in the eerie, desolate Moors—a place that looks haunted and dangerous even before the escaped prisoner Magwitch (Ray Winstone) appears and Miss Havisham (Gillian Anderson) invites Pip into her crumbling manor (a mansion haunted by a living ghost). Although Great Expectations has been adapted many times for both the big and small screens, this version is differentiated by Anderson's eerie portrayal of Havisham as a wisp of a creature—part mad ghost and part dotty hermit, a pale, fragile thing held together by her dreams of revenge on all men—and by the filmmakers' courage in making the adult Pip (Douglas Booth) a man with more class arrogance than usual. In fact, Pip is really quite unlikeable until his romantic assumptions are finally popped and he comes to terms with reality, which makes his eventual education more convincing. A handsome film with a superb cast (Winstone is a rough, scrappy Magwitch; David Suchet is perfectly guarded and seemingly unfeeling as Jaggers; and Harry Lloyd is a warmly loyal and accepting Herbert Pocket), director Brian Kirk's Masterpiece Classic-aired film is recommended. (S. Axmaker)