# Great Expectations (1998)

### reviewed by
David Sunga

    GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1998)

    Rating: 3.0 stars (out of 4.0)
    ********************************
    Key to rating system:
    2.0 stars - Debatable
    2.5 stars - Some people may like it
    3.0 stars - I liked it
    3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie
    4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out
    *********************************
    A Movie Review by David Sunga

    Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón

Written by: Mitch Glazer, from the Charles Dickens classic GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hank Azaria, Anne Bancroft, Robert De Niro

Ingredients: Starving artist lusting after a beautiful woman from his childhood

Synopsis: GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1998) is a modernized version of a Charles Dickens novel. In the original Charles Dickens classic an orphan boy named Pip learns about life through his friendship with an escaped convict, his relationship with a bitter old lady named Miss Havisham, and his hopeless lifetime infatuation with Havisham's snobbish adopted daughter, Estella. The gist of the story is that an anonymous benefactor sends Pip to London for Pip to become an upper class "gentleman." Pip leaves for London with "great expectations" to be groomed into a gentleman so that he can one day be classy enough to marry Estella. But life has a way of complicating things. Pip becomes an arrogant S.O.B. until he learns just who his secret benefactor is.

In this new 1998 version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS a poor Florida lad named Finn (Ethan Hawke) with a talent for drawing has an early memory of helping an escaped convict (Robert De Niro). But soon the focus of Finn's life becomes romance, as he develops a lifelong infatuation with Estella (Gwyneth Paltrow), an upper crust girl with some psychological and emotional issues due to being raised in a dysfunctional environment. Estella was raised in wealth by Ms. Dinsmoor (Anne Bancroft), an eccentric, aged and embittered, man-hating single aunt whose groom left her abandoned at the altar on the day of her marriage. This causes Estella to 'fear the daylight' of relationships, but Finn thinks it's just a case of snobbery.

When Finn becomes a young man, an anonymous benefactor sets Finn up in New York with the connections and publicity to be groomed into a famous artist. Finn leaves Florida with "great expectations" to be a successful artist so that some day he might become classy enough to marry the snobbish Estella. What will happen to all of Finn's "great expectations?"

    Opinion:
    If you're looking for a romance with a happy ending, look no further;
    you've found one here.

Ethan Hawke is romantic lead. (He romanced Winona Ryder in REALITY BITES. He romanced Julie Delpy in BEFORE SUNRISE. He romanced Uma Thurman in GATTACA. Now in GREAT EXPECTATIONS he gets to chase Gwyneth Paltrow, a rail-thin blonde.) Hawke plays a lovestruck, earnest and unchanged Finn throughout the film.

Meanwhile Paltrow portrays Estella as alternating between infuriating tease and ice princess; Estella's whole purpose is to get men to fall in love and then hurt them rather than become intimate. Anne Bancroft goes a little overboard as the deranged and pessimistic Ms. Dinsmoor, while Robert De Niro carries off the convict part suitably.

The difference between the classic Dickens novel and this 1998 adaptation is that the Dickens novel is ripe with deep and timeless themes about class struggle and love, whereas GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1998) is more artsy, less complicated story about a 1990s artist dealing with a lifetime tease.

    Reviewed by David Sunga
    January 30, 1998

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