Heavy handed and unconvincing. I can't work out what what they are aiming for or who the target audience is.
It is difficult to give a hoot about any of these characters who are vapid and largely interchangeable. That is, apart from the Marion Halcombe character who contrived to be both boring and hugely annoying, neither effect seeming to be useful to the story. I exclude Mrs Vesey since I could watch and enjoy Joanna Scanlon make the best of any part despite the crazily banal lines she was given.
And the silly ghostly sound effects in the background are often totally out of whack with events, detracting from any natural sense of rising tension within the story I agree with others here that the delivery of lines throughout is embarrassingly wooden...like a school play. The entire cast come across in this way. There was a total absence of chemistry between any of them.
In addition the auduence is persistantly patronised. We cant be trusted to get what's happening. Everything is overexplained in the dialogue.
When I read the book years ago I'm sure I was not conscious of so much of the plot so early...where's the mystery !!
I have tried to rewatch this today in case I was being unfair 3 years ago. I've crawled through episide one and I'm finished.
It's as if the director feels too insecure to trust to the masterly narrative at hand.
Wilkie Collins was and remains a brilliant story teller. His narratives are historic. Would you crayon on a Van Gough? :)
It is difficult to give a hoot about any of these characters who are vapid and largely interchangeable. That is, apart from the Marion Halcombe character who contrived to be both boring and hugely annoying, neither effect seeming to be useful to the story. I exclude Mrs Vesey since I could watch and enjoy Joanna Scanlon make the best of any part despite the crazily banal lines she was given.
And the silly ghostly sound effects in the background are often totally out of whack with events, detracting from any natural sense of rising tension within the story I agree with others here that the delivery of lines throughout is embarrassingly wooden...like a school play. The entire cast come across in this way. There was a total absence of chemistry between any of them.
In addition the auduence is persistantly patronised. We cant be trusted to get what's happening. Everything is overexplained in the dialogue.
When I read the book years ago I'm sure I was not conscious of so much of the plot so early...where's the mystery !!
I have tried to rewatch this today in case I was being unfair 3 years ago. I've crawled through episide one and I'm finished.
It's as if the director feels too insecure to trust to the masterly narrative at hand.
Wilkie Collins was and remains a brilliant story teller. His narratives are historic. Would you crayon on a Van Gough? :)