Great Expectations (2023)

Dickens’ rich gallery of rogues, rascals and near innocents come ever so deliciously to vibrant life thanks to an impeccable cast.

This energetic remix doesn’t betray the spirit of the original. Dickens’s heavy social conscience, character-driven scenes, and preposterous plotting are all deftly distilled.

The set design is impeccable and the cast is exceptional. ... True representation is tricky and demands much self-interrogation on the part of screenwriters and viewers. Either way, as a thought experiment Great Expectations is certainly worth the pursuit.

There are strong showings, including Johnny Harris as desperate convict Magwitch, who accosts Pip on the grey, gloopy marshes, and nicely conjured atmospheres: silvery mists; candle flames tickling the gloom. However, despite the controversy, episode one is somewhat ponderous.

I can see how Knight’s own ostentatious stamp might ruffle the feathers of purists (episode two features a rather unexpected spanking scene). And I question whether it should have been made at all. Even with his surprises, Knight’s Great Expectations can’t escape being a story that we already know inside out. Yet there is an argument that any new Dickens adaptation needs to have a fresh angle. Knight certainly has that. Whether it’s for better or worse is yet to be seen

Colman is her predictably excellent self; there is a risk she will reduce everything else to filler while viewers await her next mesmerising appearance.

Knight’s signature style – swagger and machismo, violence and dirt – is overdone but does make sense for the Magwitch scenes, with Johnny Harris suitably frightening in the role. Young actor Tom Sweet has just the right mix of innocence and inner strength to make a memorable Pip.

FX’s version remains just another unsuccessful Dickens adaptation at best, and a lackluster period drama at worst. Great Expectations touts a talented cast and a broken and bent version of a classic, that, unfortunately, does not equal a better shape.

In expanding the story the way he has, and giving far more room to characters who were perfectly Dickensian in their economy, Mr. Knight has lost much of the subtle psychology—especially regarding Havisham. ... Dickens was pretty adept at providing just as much about a character as was needed to make his point. Mr. Knight gives us more, and the point becomes elusive.

He [Steven Knight] shellacs the 160-year-old story with plaque scraped from Havisham’s teeth while never revealing new truths. The result is a conflicted and strained yet stylish and breezy interpretation of Dickens that, to paraphrase Pip, is “good enough.”

I did not love it. To be honest, I struggled to see the point of it, or much that was even very striking in the opening episode. When there have been so many adaptations of a great novel you need something remarkable to justify another, something beyond a stark opening suicide attempt and throwing in the F-word in at 21 minutes (the swearing doesn’t bother me since I’m fairly confident it happened quite a lot in Dickensian times, but it has got some people in a lather).

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this new version of Great Expectations, but we’re wondering why someone would seek out this longer, slower adaptation when there are other adaptations that get more to the heart of Dickens’ novel much faster.

Needless and lazy. ... Even with the infusion of sex and violence and post-colonial theory, it is hard to feel excited about this new take. With all this lack of imagination or interest in new ideas, it seems like Miss Havisham’s clocks are not the only thing frozen in time.

Only Miss Havisham pops off the screen, making this an adaptation lacking in a certain balance. ... Miss Havisham’s mansion — cluttered with detritus, almost impassably full of objects — may come to feel like a fitting device on a show on which a couple of breakthrough performances are surrounded by unmetabolized narrative clutter.

Most [of the actors] are unable to rise above the stylistic miasma of the production. ... The series becomes sillier as it becomes more serious, wending its way to a bizarrely cheerful conclusion — given the dour preceding hours — that shares only a fire with its literary antecedent. None of the character development feels earned. The narrative threads are clumsily engineered; their tying up feels pat.

Those five actors [Olivia Colman, Matthew Needham, Matt Berry, Owen McDonnell, and Ashley Thomas] are carrying a production so badly written and so tritely directed (and photographed and scored) that viewers will struggle to stay awake.