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DVD The Woman in White
Wilkie Collins is hot. One of the most underrated Victorian mystery writers, Collins offers up eerie, evocative tales. While The Moonstone may be his best-known novel (it was made into a 1996 telefilm starring Sense and Sensibility's Greg Wise), The Woman in White is an equally affecting and engaging tale. A timeless gothic story, it is told from the perspective of Marian (Tara Fitzgerald), who's staying at a villa with her cousin Laura (Justine Waddell). The women become involved with a sympathetic painter and a slew of duplicitous aristocrats, including one played by James Wilby. Then there's that woman (who looks a lot like Laura), cloaked in white, who keeps running around the garden grounds at night. Fitzgerald is far too gorgeous to be the plain Marian, heroine of the novel, but costumers make a valiant--if unsuccessful--attempt to make her look dowdy and less attractive than Waddell. Fitzgerald is so lovely and likable that audiences are easily drawn into her predicament. Who is the mysterious woman in white? How and why has Laura disappeared? Simon Callow is particularly notable as the suave Count Fosco, who may or may not be who he seems to be. The Woman in White was made into a 1982 miniseries and five other film versions. Trivia note: Ian Richardson appears in both the 1982 version and this one. --N.F. Mendoza
Impossible to Reconcile the Violently Negative Reviews with the Favorable Ones
I find it unusual that the reviews of this movie are so skewed at the very ends of the continuum of great to horrible. Whenever this happens, I am tempted to see the movie and judge for myself. That is what I suggest to viewers here. I have both read the book and seen the movie, and I, unusually it seems, like both. I obviously do not require pedantic faithfulness to the book in order to have a resulting good story.
It would take a lengthy mini-series to present this story as Wilkie Collins wrote it, and it is a magnificent book, in conception as well as in execution. It is written from the perspective of several characters in the book, and the differing viewpoints and their presentations are remarkably well done by Collins. The Moonstone may be the more popular of the two books, but Collins himself recognized the literary grandeur of The Woman in White, noting his authorship of it, not of The Moonstone, on his tombstone.
It would be immensely difficult, in my opinion, and probably would cost too much, to bring the book faithfully to the movie or television screen. This version is as good as we are likely to see, and, again in my opinion, this is a good version. If one has not read the book, and, as a practical matter, I think most viewers will not have, one will find this a compelling story, well told and uniformly well acted. Why should not those who have not read the book become familiar with Collins and this story and be entertained by it -- even if it is not entirely, or even largely, faith to the book? After all, there are many books that are not faithfully brought to production, but that does not necessarily mean that the story, as revised to fit time and pecuniary restraints of production, will not be entertaining. This story is.
So try it for yourself, even if you have read the book, and judge for yourself. Whenever I see such emotionally negative reviews, and when they are so intensely stated, resulting in so obviously distorted a view of the subject movie, I wonder if there is a reason, such as a somewhat narrow and tiresome attempt at display of learning (e.g., the reviewer, among few others sufficiently erudite, knows that this movie is quite different from the book), that accounts for the negativism, with no thought being given to the entertainment value of the movie, which should be the primary criterion of review.
Total Trash
Whatever you do, do NOT buy this horrid re-writing of Collin's book. The only way you are going to enjoy it is if you have not read the novel and are don't care to ever let your eyes fall on the printed page. Once you get into the book, the pages will fly you will be so engrossed. I know that film needs to take liberties with stories, but this was an assassination of what is considered one of the first mystery novels. It does not follow either the spirit or the story of the original for which I can find no possible excuse. Two hours is plenty of time to bring out the best Collins has to offer. Too bad that such a good cast was used to no real meaningful purpose. I am so glad I borrowed it from my local library. I can't wait to return it tomorrow.
disappointing!
This movie is so disappointing. I understand they had to adapt it but why all the changes? The changes made the movie more confusing and unbelievable. Don't waste your money on this.
Having read the novel, I was extremely disappointed in the film. The only claim that the film legitimately has of being based on the novel is that some of the characters have the same names and it is in roughly the same geographic location. Novel aside, the film does little to explain the background information that is neccesary to understanding the plot, it simply starts off in media res and makes no attempt explain anything. Without having read the book, I would have been hopelessly lost. The film also does not define the relationships between the characters. They seem to be wandering aimlessly around the countryside bumping into each other. Badly done, scriptwriters, badly done. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Betsan Morris Evans DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The BBC has raised the mini-series to an astonishing creative peak. A prime example is the 1994 production of Middlemarch, based on the classic novel by George Eliot, which juxtaposes morals and money, grand ambitions with petty jealousies, and pursuits of the mind with bodily needs. A handsome young doctor named Lydgate (Douglas Hodge, Vanity Fair) comes to the provincial town of Middlemarch to start a new hospital; a headstrong young woman named Dorothea (Juliet Aubrey, The Mayor of Casterbridge) yearns to contribute to the greater good of the world. These idealists enter into marriages that derail all their intentions and lead them into lives they never imagined. The network of characters in this six-episode program, ranging up and down the societal ladder, create... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Anthony Page DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Novelist Anthony Trollope doesn't have the name recognition of his Victorian contemporary Charles Dickens, but he has all of Dickens's strengths and more--invigorating plots, eccentric characters bursting with life, and an insightful, panoramic view of English society. He Knew He Was Right starts with an idyllic romance between the well-off Louis Trevelyan (Oliver Dimsdale) and Emily Rowley (Laura Fraser). But when the rakish Col. Osborne (Bill Nighy, Love Actually) begins to visit her regularly, Louis becomes jealous--and the pressures of Victorian society soon turn this jealousy into an all-consuming possession that could destroy the lives of Louis, Emily, and their young son. This dark and harrowing story is deftly juxtaposed with two related tales: A blithely... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Tom Vaughan DVD Release Date: Released the 25 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Set in the 18th century and based on Samuel Richardson's novel from the same period, Clarissa is a superb 1991 four-part British production (with 50-minute episodes) about a wealthy but lustful, vile rogue's attempt to conquer a pure and virtuous woman; or, on a more basic level, it is the attempt of vice to conquer virtue. Clarissa, our beautiful heroine, is a good, dutiful and pious woman who, for her kindness and virtue, has, as the story opens, become the heir to her grandfather's fortune--to the exclusion and envy of her spiteful brother and sister, her parents, and her uncle, all of whom have conspired to take their revenge by attempting to force Clarissa into marriage with an intolerable, ugly, fopish idiot. The irony is that Clarissa really does not want her grandfather's money;... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Robert Bierman DVD Release Date: Released the 09 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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