Wrapping up Great Expectations

The last episode of the new Great Expectations adaptation was a bit of a let-down, because once again - it was the same with the Rampling version - they failed to get the relationship between Pip and Magwitch right. It is really important that an adapter follows Dickens closely here. In the novel, Magwitch never guesses that Pip is disappointed in his benefactor - and I and I suspect a great many other readers want to keep it that way. But no, the modern the-truth-must-out-generation feels compelled to change the story so that Magwitch does suss that he's not wanted, but by the end he and Pip have formed a bond based on true feelings. For pity's sake, people! There are more important things than honesty at all costs, and Magwitch's affection for Pip being undimmed by trouble from first to last is one of them. Go and do a high school movie and get all that "truth prevails" nonsense out of your systems.

Miss Havisham's personality change ended up bugging me more in the last episode than in the two previous ones, as she's not even allowed a proper epiphany. The TV adaptation's Miss Havisham, apart from her little-girl-lost ways, is also meaner to Pip than she was in the book. There, Miss Havisham's cruelty was more an indication of indifference than anything else: Pip was someone for Estella to practice on, and someone Miss Havisham could annoy her relatives with. He was collateral damage. In the adaptation, as a contrast, she starts him dreaming of becoming a gentleman only to consciously dash his hopes by paying for his apprenticeship. I don't think it entered Miss Havisham's head in the novel that her payment of Pip's apprenticeship might not be welcomed by him. Even so, there is an argument for a more malicious Havisham-treatment of Pip: he is a man, after all.

What is necessary, in my view, is that Miss Havisham realises the grief she has caused him and others by witnessing his impassioned plea to Estella. She recognises the pain of thwarted love and is sorry. This is central to the novel: in the adaptation, however, Miss Havisham is unmoved by Pip's plight and doesn't scruple to make things worse by insulting him. It's only after she's lost Estella completely that she asks his forgiveness, rather half-heartedly. Her death becomes more or less another act of self-indulgence.

These and a few changes to Magwitch's back story which left Jaggers looking worse than he is were my main gripes, but other things were handled well. Pip's debts were reduced to an amount which it would be plausible for Joe to pay off. Pip paying Magwitch's jailers and undertakers with bits and pieces of his gentleman uniform such as his rings and his cane was a nice touch, and so was Estella thanking the horse that did for the spot-on loathsome Drummle. The ending, thankfully, had the right note of hope. All in all, still a better Great Expectation adaptation than the last one.

What is the BBC planning to do next in the Victorian novel genre, though? A new Moonstone, if you please! I've started to rewatch the spendidly cast version from 1996 trying to figure out how they could possibly improve on it. No luck so far. The story moves along smoothly, the characters are shorn of their most irritating characteristics and played by the cream of English actordom. As I've said before, I find The Moonstone overrated as a book, and this is already a better adaptation than it deserves. Why waste time on a new one? Please, BBC, be a little original once in a while. Why not do Armadale instead?