Little Dorrit

Movie (miniseries): Little Dorrit (Masterpiece Theater edition)
Like/Don't Like: Long but worth it. It has Matthew Mcfadyen. And lots and lots of crazy Dickens characters. See...worth it.

You have probably heard me mention that I had this professor who was a Dickens scholar and, at the time of our class, was recovering from (and I am NOT making this up) a near fatal flesh-eating disease that left his body covered in gaping, oozing sores. How very Dickensian, right? I mean, seriously, Dickens would have killed for a plot like that.

You should know that anytime I mention Dickens I'm going to bring that up...because it's just too fantastic to not mention.


On to the review:

I will admit that I was lured in by Matthew Macfadyen. While he isn't my favorite Mr. Darcy, he is certainly swoon-worthy. And it's Masterpiece Classic. I'm required by my status as a Former English Major/80 Year Old Woman to watch all of them. Had I known that it was approximately 118 hours long, I probably would have thought twice, but by the first episode I was hooked and had to go the distance. It's actually 8 hours, over 5 episodes, which is still a huge time commitment. And you can imagine my anticipation of it all working out. I didn't know the story, and there are so many twists and turns and trips to Venice in this one that I wasn't sure that it all would. But it did. It's Dickens. It generally does.

The plot is entirely too complicated to even give you a synopsis but I will tell you that it has all the things you love about Dickens. (You love Dickens, don't you? If you don't you should read A Tale of Two Cities and get back to me with your answer.) Funny names, eccentric characters, debtors prison, really good villains. And, really fine acting. Character actors in England must rejoice when casting calls go out for a Dickens adaptation because there are dozens of roles, all calling for quirky performances.

If you're looking for a more modern tale, would it help to tell you that part of this story revolves around a Ponzi scheme?