The same old story

Hard on the heels of last year’s television adaptation starring David Suchet and Ray Winstone is a new version of Dickens’s Great Expectations, in cinemas later this month. The new version, starring Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, and which closed the 2012 London Film Festival, comes after adaptations which include David Lean’s 1946 classic, the BBC’s 1999 version with Charlotte Rampling, a 1981 take on the yarn, an early 1970s production starring Michael York, one in 2007 with Timothy Spall, another featuring Ray McAnally, and yet another with Gwyneth Paltrow.

At least the versions differ — for example, Paltrow’s dumbed-down offering is set in modern times complete with an MTV-style soundtrack, while this latest adaptation differs from numerous others by being especially faithful to the book. Many locations are close to those in the novel, and the director made sure that the ages of the actors were similar to those of the characters.