![]() Matthew Rhys was astounding - at the beginning of the first part his character had some moments of charisma (well, one, perhaps when he was singing to the choir and demonstrating flat and sharp keys) but this didn't last when he spiralled downwards into his obsessions and became a truly awful character but very sympathetic at the same time. This was a brilliant production, however. From that standpoint, I have nothing to say about how this production was adapted. I'd love to see where he left off and where the screenwriter had to fill in the gaps. I haven't read The Mystery of Edwin Drood yet and it has now moved up the list of Dickens books that I want to read. Way too many twists are attempted in this latter part so that it feels muddled and ludicrous, nothing like Dickens at all. The ending is particularly bad, hinging around one massive plot hole/contrivance (a character appearing from nowhere at just the right time) that it's impossible to ignore. ![]() It's clear that this segment wasn't written by Dickens, instead completed by the scriptwriter. What a shame, then, that the second part just doesn't hold up. Kudos too for the familiar character actors fleshing out more minor roles: Julia McKenzie, Ian McNeice and Alun Armstrong all acquit themselves well, and Rory Kinnear (FIRST MEN IN THE MOON) seems to be going from strength to strength. It's split into two instalments, and the first does admirably well in setting up the chessboard of characters: Matthew Rhys (BROTHERS AND SISTERS) is great as the sweaty and sinister Jack Jasper. My viewing of this one benefited from not having read the famously incomplete story that Dickens died during writing. The hilarious scenes involving churchyard urchin Deputy are alone better than anything in that other awful production. The good news is that it's a damn sight better than GREAT EXPECTATIONS, being noticeably more 'Dickensian' in feel, with plenty of amusingly monkeyed supporting characters. THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD is the second of two Dickens adaptations that the BBC showed over the New Year 2011/2012. In conclusion, solid and very well-done especially for the performances. Freddie Fox shows command of the Dickenesian language, Tamzin Merchant is appealingly pert and Rory Kinnear, Ian McNeise, Julia MacKenzie and Alun Armstrong turn in strongly dependable performances too. It is a very well-performed adaptation too, Matthew Rhys steals the show, intense and heartfelt it is a brilliant performance. ![]() The story is tense and suspenseful, with some good twists and turns and very compelling storytelling, more so in the first half admittedly. The dialogue is carefully and intelligently adapted, making an effort to sound Dickenesian and not too contemporary, also nobly developing the characters in rich detail. But it is very handsomely filmed and remarkably authentic to the period it's set in, while the score is unobtrusive and hauntingly beautiful. It does suffer from incompleteness(the book doesn't help) and its contrived and abrupt ending. ![]() ![]() This adaptation is not perfect but does nobly with its source material. The real mystery of this Edwin Drood is how it ever reached the big screen.The Mystery of Edwin Drood is both captivating and frustrating, captivating in its tension and suspense as well as the titular character and frustrating in its incompleteness. Robert Powell is the only participant with a grip on melodramatic villainy, his sinister brooding moodies being the most attractive element here, but one poorly exploited in a tediously prosaic tale. The issue is not whodunnit, however, but why and how - the why being the fair Rosa in the bustling little form of Finty Williams the how hinted at so frequently as to lose any power to shock when it's finally recounted. The drift is that respectable cathedra choir master John Jasper (Powell) is secretly a depraved opium smoker whose jealous obsession with his smug, carefree nephew, the eponymous Drood, and Edwin's fiancee Rosa, leads to murder most foul. Initially this is a fair approximation of a BBC production - familiar cast, comfortable settings and uncomfortable costumes - but the lack of satisfactory development and its mediocre treatment go some way in explaining its absence so far from our TV screens. In taking it on, writer-director Timothy Forder has turned it into a melodrama of a cad and a virtuous heroine which is more akin to the works of Barbara Cartland than Dickens. Not only is Charles Dickens' half-drafted novel of maddened passion and murder far from great literature, but he also wrote only six chapters before his death and left no notes on how he intended it to end. ![]()
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