Expect little from Alfonso Cuaron's 'Great Expectations'

By Rayya Makarim

JAKARTA (JP): "We are who we are," says a teary eyed Estella (Gwyneth Paltrow). This statement pretty much sets the tone for Alfonso Cuaron's Great Expectations which is loosely based on the Charles Dickens classic.

The film is updated from Victorian England to present-day Florida and New York. The characters are more submissive, the mood more cheery, and the story more simplistic.

Cuaron, who made his American directorial debut with A Little Princess, which won the LA Film Critics New Generation Award, has opted for a flashier, star-studded adaptation which is so distant from the original novel that it might as well be called something else.

Finn Bell (Jeremy James Kissner), a 10-year-old aspiring artist, lives with his sister Maggie (Kim Dickens) and her kind fisherman boyfriend Joe (Chris Cooper) in a small Florida town.

One bright sunny day, Finn meets Lustig (Robert De Niro), a convict who forces the boy to aid his escape from prison. With this experience still fresh in his mind, Finn is summoned by the eccentric Dinsmoor (Anne Bancroft), the richest woman in town, who lost her mind when her fiance left her standing at the altar 30 years ago.

Finn is introduced to young Estella (Raquel Beaudene), Dinsmoor's snobby niece, and falls hopelessly in love with her. Time passes, and the children grow up.

The plot thickens when Estella abruptly leaves without saying goodbye. The adult Finn (Ethan Hawke), confused and devastated, stops painting altogether until a mysterious benefactor offers to pay for a one-man show at a prestigious New York gallery.

It is difficult to sit through Cuaron's film without comparing it to David Lean's exquisite 1946 British version or Kevin Connor's 1993 Disney version, both loyal to the original, and captures the dark, somber mood of the novel.

In the 1998 Great Expectations, most of the characters have been renamed: Pip is now Finn, Magwitch is Lustig, Jaggers becomes Ragno, and Havisham is Dinsmoor.

This immediately throws overboard Dickens' genius for matching names with memorable characters such as Gradgrind, Chadband, Pip Pirrip, Martin Chuzzlewit, and Oliver Twist.

Other characters that add to the intricate web of intrigue in the story, such as Orlick, Herbert Picket, Compeyson, and Molie, are omitted altogether.

The problem with the modern film version may be that the screenplay, written by Mitch Glazer, is not about social mobility. It is also not about the dignity of working class values (embodied by the character Joe).

Finn's defiance of Ms. Dinsmoor does not symbolize the rejection of old values (Victorian values), and Lustig does not represent brutalized humanity, social injustice and strange loyalty.

Instead, Glazer's script is purely about love, limiting the film's potential as well as simplifying a great work of literature.

The audience should pay attention to the hint at the beginning of the film where Finn warns us that he is not going to tell the story the way it happened, but the way he remembers it.

Dickens' novel is what happened, Cuaron's film is bad memory. Thus, the camera approach is subjective with everything seen through Finn's eye.

This explains 111 minutes of Hawke in almost every shot, and his narration at every plot point. When Estella seduces Finn after a party, we feel Finn's nausea as the camera spins around.

Another scene shows a low-angle, close-up of a frustrated Finn after hearing about Estella's marriage. Here, the audience is positioned "looking up" into Finn's face. We feel his grief and the closeness makes us want to break away.

If the camera shots represent Finn's state of mind, the setting defines Ms. Dinsmoor's. Her mansion is filled with the remains of a wedding party that never took place. The collapsed party tents, the overturned banquet tables, and the broken crystal represent broken dreams and lost hopes. Upstairs, the mirrors, the ripped wallpaper, the dead leaves signify decay and distorted views. The dilapidated "Paradiso Perduto" is indeed a lost paradise where the crumbling structure accompanies the deterioration of the mind and soul.

Glazer's interpretation of character is not as bold as his rendition of the text. Estella is sad and resigned instead of nasty and bitter. Paltrow plays her role carefully, completely dismissing Estella's hidden hatred toward her aunt, the woman who made her what she is.

Estella's lover, Walter (Hank Azaria), joins in accepting her condition by saying, "It's just who she is." This constructed complacency reduces the conflict between characters, making them flat and bland.

Bancroft is fantastic as she prances around with her elaborate costumes, although she spits out "chicka-boom!" as if it was the punch line of every joke. Unfortunately, we tend to mistake her bitter vengeance for pure lunacy. This takes away from the dramatic scheming nature of one of the most colorful and pathetic characters in Dickens' classic.

As for Hawke, his Finn is a collage of previous film roles. When he is with Estella, he reenacts the lost, confused little boy look he mastered in Dead Poet's Society. When he is without her, he is the grungy beer-drinking artist from Reality Bites.

The new Great Expectations lacks the drudgery of the times. The suppressive, dark, bogged down feeling is absent.

De Niro leaping out of water, reminding us of scenes more appropriate for Cape Fear, replaces the famous introductory encounter between Pip and Magwitch in a misty graveyard. It misses the Dickens magic.

If one is not familiar with Dickens' work or with Lean's and Connor's adaptation, it is possible to enjoy Cuaron's version immensely.

Finn is the semi-dork, sensitive, vulnerable male, while Estella is cold but ready to melt. Dinsmoor is entertainingly zany, and Lustig is moving with his tattered warmth.

But then again, "I'm not going to tell the story the way it happened, I'm going to tell the story the way I remembered it."

The writer is film curator at Teater Utan Kayu, East Jakarta.