GREAT EXPECTATIONS By Harvey Karten, Ph.D. 20th Century Fox Director: Alfonso Cuaron Writer: Mitch Glazer Cast: Ethan Hawke, Robert De Niro, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anne Bancroft
They say that what makes a classic is a work's ability to transcend its own time period--to set out universal truths about human nature. The trouble with that idea is that ALL works assert concepts that go beyond their own eras. So then, what makes "Macbeth" universal is not the swordplay, which mires it in its own time period, but its views on the nature of politics and greed. But if that's true, then why not say that any soap opera is a classic since every story on afternoon TV will undoubtedly deal with envy, lust, greed, and/or revenge?
In any case, "Great Expectations," which might look remote from our time period (despite its reference to universal ideas) if done as a museum piece, shows its timelessness in Mitch Glazer's overhaul adaptation of the Charles Dickens story. To avoid tonguetwisters, even the names have been changed: out with Magwitch, Miss Havisham and England; in with Pip and Florida and New York.
Name changes are not the principal difference between Dickens's work and Mitch Glazer's script. In perhaps his most popular work, the 19th century author underscored the changes that money engendered in the life of Pip, an orphan and the unwanted ward of his harsh sister. Brought up lovingly by his brother-in-law, Joe--who manages to retain his selfless affection for Pip--the young man is corrupted by receipt of a large sum of money from an unknown source, moving him from a poor cottage in England's marsh country to the position of a London dandy. He becomes a snob, ashamed of his backwoods brother-in-law and uncomfortable in his presence. Ultimately finding out the identity of his benefactor--whom he has assumed to be the fabulously rich and vindictive Miss Havisham--he waxes older and wiser, acknowledges Joe as the kind man who gave him so much love when he was a boy, and thus redeemed is able once again to pursue his childhood sweetheart.
This scenario was for the most part honored by David Lean's 1946, 4-star movie, considered by some one of the greatest films ever made, unmatched by the 1974 revival and the 1934 predecessor. The current version highlights the change which softened the radiant ice-princess now known as Estella. The niece of the fabulously rich and terminally dotty Miss Dinsmore, Estella has been brought up to be like a female Chad, the villainous yuppie in the remarkable 1997 movie, "In the Company of Men." Estella's mission in life is to act seductively toward men until they fell in love with her, and then to dump them. She is a tease, the sort of woman known in some circles by a more vulgar expression. Since her aunt had been left at the altar some 30 years earlier, a traumatic experience which Miss Dinsmore never got over, the rich old lady now uses her niece to extract vengeance against the entire male gender. When Dinsmore invites the 11-year-old Finn to her lavish home, known as Paradiso Perduto, she warns the handsome youth not to fall in love with Estella lest he be terribly hurt by her in time. Staggered by the kiss he receives from the young Estella while both drink from a fountain, Finn falls instantly in love and is determined to marry this comely blond goddess.
"Great Expectations" is certainly not the Masterpiece Theater type of production one might expect from the title, but cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki pulls out the stops with his exquisitely made production, which is designed with great chic by Tony Burrough. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron at an appropriately relaxed pace, the narrative moves forward insistently, albeit without many surprises, tracing the cycles of life of its chief characters. With many of Dickens's incidental persons deleted in the interest of keeping the show under two hours, Cuaron keeps the movie's theme uppermost in our minds: how will the lives of Finnegan Bell (Ethan Hawke) and Estella (Gwyneth Paltrow) touch, part, and reunite? The movie features some dazzling scenes, particularly one in which Estella visits Finn to pose for the artist's sketches, strips completely to Finn's astonishment, and at the conclusion of the session simply leaves without so much as a touch. In yet another erotically-charged display, Estella asks Finn to take her out of a party and to his home, where she seductively invites his embrace and once again suddenly departs. The movie's opening scene--which in the David Lean version is a knockout in an English graveyard--becomes a scary one in the Florida waters as the 11-year-old Finn is surprised by an escaped death-row convict, Lustig (Robert De Niro) who swears Finn to secrecy and is helped by the lad in his escape.
Ann Bancroft's performance as the loopy Miss Dinsmore overshadows the rest of the cast. As a hermit in her mansion--in which all clocks have been stopped to designate the moment she was stood up at the alter--she dances with her young guest like a flaky Auntie Mame, made up to appear twenty years older as she alternately coaxes Finn to make nice with her niece and alerts him to the dangers of such courtship. Ethan Hawke is no match for Bancroft. Ideal for the role of the spirited Vincent in "Gattaca," Hawke is too limited to portray Finn's metamorphosis from backwoods fisherman to art-world ingenue and is likewise swallowed by the lovely, resonant performance of Gwyneth Paltrow as the adult Estella. De Niro's final scene in the New York subways is even less believable than his initial foray in the Florida waters, but Chris Cooper is adept as the kindly but decidedly un-classy Joe.
Francesco Clemente's drawings of Estella are among the highlights of this generally opulent but somewhat strained and sentimental rendering of the Dickens classic. Rated R. Running Time: 111 minutes. (C) 1998 by Harvey Karten
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