“Great Expectations” by Mike Newell – Trailer review

The trailer for the new adaptation of Great Expectations has been released!

Starring the charmingly creepy Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch, Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham, Sally Hawkins as Mrs Joe, Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) as Pip and Holliday Grainger (Anna Karenine, Bel Ami) as Estella. Let us keep this last name in mind, we are about to hear a great deal of it; Holliday Grainger will appear in 3 films before the end of this year (Anna Karenine, Bel Ami and Great Expectations). You might have seen her before in Jane Eyre as Diane Rivers or in the tv series The Borgias.

This dark adaptation of the classic is directed by Mike Newell, who previously directed Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco, Mona Lisa Smile, and more recently Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. And indeed, there seems to be a bit of a Harry Potter feel to this film which is perhaps also due to the presence of the uncanny Helena Bonham Carter. She keeps proving it, from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street to the Harry Potter series and soon Les Misérables, never did anyone look better in rags…

As for the screenplay, we owe it to David Nicholls. He mostly wrote for television with a four-episode adaptation of Tess of the D’Ubervilles. He adapted his own best seller novel One Day to the screen in 2011.

The opening of Dickens’ novel

My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

Thus begins the all time classic by Charles Dickens, and so does the trailer of this most recent adaptation with the mention of the name «Pip» as the first words we rightfully hear.

Viddy Well,

E.D.

The movie will first be released in Ireland and the UK on november 30.

To view the trailer on Youtube, copy this link:

http://youtu.be/f9wemtsBnP4