Bleak House

While the BBC's miniseries adaptation of the enormous Charles Dickens classic Bleak House isn't exactly a "film," I think it surpasses the normal scope of television sufficiently to warrant a review. I have always wanted to read Bleak House because of its infamous satire of lawyers, but I confess that I balked at the size of the book (it has around a thousand pages). Then I discovered the miniseries, which is still quite long (almost 8 hours), but manageable. We had to borrow it from the library twice to finish the whole series, but it was well worth the effort.

Despite its boring title, Bleak House has a little bit of everything -- suspense, intrigue, mystery, murder, and romance. The plot revolves around a young woman who never knew her parents and her two companions who stand to inherit a fortune in a court case which has already gone on for decades. There are also plenty of scandalous secrets and absurd characters which reminded me that Dickens was writing his era's version of a soap opera.

The production of Bleak House is excellent -- the BBC has come a long way since it made a movie out of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The acting is very good, and the writers did an admirable job and reducing such a hefty serial novel into the most important elements. Even the music was superb -- quiet and pretty, but with an edge to it that hints at sinister intentions. I only had two small complaints about the production -- the main character is supposed to look like the character played by Gillian Anderson, but the two actresses look nothing alike. I also found the modern, jumpy camera style a little distracting at times, although it was very unnerving and matched the tone of the series. Overall, I thought Bleak House was a fine production and a great way to experience a classic novel.
∗∗∗1/2