Little Dorrit

Released 1988
Stars Alec Guinness, Sarah Pickering, Cyril Cusack, Amelda Brown, Derek Jacobi, Joan Greenwood, Roshan Seth
Directed by Christine Edzard
Reviewed March 15, 2000

I have mixed feelings about this six-hour epic based on the Dickens' novel of the same name. It's an unusual love story set in Victorian times and is divided into two halves. The first half of the film tells the story from Arthur Clennam's point of view. He's a 40 year-old businessman, who has just returned from 20 years in China. After he catches a glimpse of young Amy Dorrit, a servant girl considerably less than half his age, he finds that she lives in a debtor's prison, where her father is interred. Much of the film revolves around life in this prison.

The second half of the film tells the same story as the first, but it tells it from Amy Dorrit's point of view. This is very intriguing, and it points out how subtle a phrase or a glance can be. You see how one  person can be oblivious to signals from another, and you see the consequences of this. At the end of the first half, we learn Amy was in love with Arthur. Arthur is devastated by this news because he had no idea, and now it's too late. I can't blame him for not knowing this, because I certainly had no idea either. In the second half, however, we see everything from Amy's perspective, and things become clear.

I said I had mixed feelings about the film, and that's because it's entirely too long. Derek Jacobi who plays Arthur is very good, but his half of the movie is completely unfocused and terribly boring. It chases dozens of characters around the city, and very little makes sense. It should have been edited from three hours to one. The second half, however, is much more focused, and I found it engrossing. It concentrates on Amy's life with her family in the debtor's prison, and many secrets and confusing points from the first half are revealed. My only real problem with the second half was the length again. It drags for a long time after the Dorrits receive their inheritance, and I wish that part had been tightened.

One thing that was solid throughout the film, however, was the atmosphere. The costumes and interior set designs made me feel like I was there, and the film is almost worth seeing just for this. I'm not sure it is worth seeing, however, because three hours of it are so terribly boring. If you like period pieces, you may want to check it out. The best thing to do would be to have a friend edit the film with a couple of vcr's and create a tight, engrossing, three-hour film. Yeah, right.

Reviewed by Bill Alward  Home
 

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