Customer Reviews

Fingersmith

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I pre-ordered this dvd months ago, and I have to say it was worth the wait. The book could not have been easy to adapt. The novel is detailed and rich, and the plot is complicated. But the adaptation is excellent! Yes, some things were left out. Also, the movie does start a bit slowly (so did the book), and the part of Gentleman might have been miscast -- I was expecting someone more like Bruce Campbell. But the movie stands on its own as a literary piece. The movie and the book are both exceptional, but in different ways. The movie is great storytelling. In addition, the direction, acting, sets, and costumes are top notch. This is a very high quality production -- why can't American filmmakers make films like this?

This BBC made-for-TV two-parter is a wonderful adaptation of the novel by the same name. In typical BBC fashion, the Victorian era sets and costumes are authentic, the camera work is artful, and the acting is superb. Perhaps most importantly, the recreation is very faithful to the book. The author of the novel, Sarah Waters, has an amazing talent for storytelling, suspense, and rich characterizations. There are several revelations and twists in the plot that will really surprise you if you haven't read the book first.

The casting and acting are mostly excellent, including the Oscar-nominated actress Imelda Staunton. I look forward to seeing more films by the two leading ladies, Sally Hawkins and Elaine Cassidy, both of whom were believable and touching.

My only complaint is the casting of Rupert Evans as Gentleman. Having read the book, I pictured Gentleman a good ten years older than Evans. Evans does not express the authority, complexity and ambivalence inherent in Gentleman's personality; his Gentleman is a youthful, one-dimensional villain. Fortunately, the other performances and the production as a whole are strong enough that this failing did not detract from my overall appreciation of a very well-made, engrossing and heartfelt drama.

Beautiful drama, suprising twists, true love. What else could you ask for in a movie? This has it all for me. The potential to be just another costume drama was there, but this movie far surpasses that description. Beautiful filming, great score. the dialogue is convincing and the actresses are wonderfull! see this movie you will not be sorry.

James1@OconeeAirService.com

After reading Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith, I knew I had to take a look at the film adaptation of the story. A BBC production from 2005 of this tale of double crosses and forbidden love does a credible job of making a believable transition to the screen.

Set in London's underbelly in the 1860's, we see the world of Mrs. Sucksby (Imelda Staunton), a baby-farmer who takes in foundlings, and the materfamilias of a gang of thieves and a fence, Mr. Ibbs (David Troughton). In their little tribe of thieves -- or fingersmiths -- there is Sue Trinder (Sally Hawkins). Sue, unlike the other two thieves in the household, is rather cherished by Mrs. Sucksby, and has a privileged status as a sort of adopted daughter. Not that Sue is naive, mind you. She knows the rough and tumble ways of life at the bottom, but when a scheme is hatched by Gentleman (Rupert Evans) to defraud a gentlewoman, Sue is more than eager to join in the plot. After all, her take will be three thousand pounds, a goodly sum in that day and time.

The gentlewoman in question is Maud Lilly (Elaine Cassidy), the niece of a landowner, Mr. Lilly (Charles Dance) in the countryside. Briar, as the estate is known, is a crumbling, dark and downright sinister place. With a rather unpleasant childhood, Maud finds a sort of sanctuary at Briar, treated as a lady, wearing fine clothing, but there is something rotten at the very bottom of Briar, where she entertains her uncle's guests by reading his massive collection of books to them, and helping her uncle catalog his books as a secretary.

But then a young man appears in her life, Richard Rivers, young and charming and interested in Maud herself. He begs for her to marry him, to leave the dusty, dim world that her uncle inhabits, and know the freedom of London as his wife.

But here too, not all is as it seems, for Rivers is none other than Gentleman, and he has plotted for Sue to become Maud's lady's-maid and friend, and so, have Maud committed to an lunatic asylum, and he will gain control of Maud's fortune, with Sue receiving a share...

I really don't want to reveal more of the plot, as this is a story full of twists and turns, and some truly knockout punches. The emotional level in this film is high, but very believable, especially with the characters of Maud and Sue. The atmosphere is suitably dank and unnerving, but beautifully shot and directed by Aisling Walsh with Peter Ransley adapting the novel in the screenplay. While I had known what the story was going to be from reading the novel, I was hooked from the start, and followed eagerly along through the three-hour film, presented in two parts.

Parents should note that this film has some fairly questionable material, dealing as it does with Victorian pornography, and the intense emotions between two women. Those who find this objectionable should not watch this, as while the scenes are tastefully done, they're not masking over any details either. The scenes in the asylum are also fairly graphic, along with visuals of two hangings.

The DVD edition has some extras, with character overviews, a 'behind the scenes' featurette that has Sarah Waters speaking about her film, along with scene selections and a cast overview. The picture and sound quality are fairly crisp and clear.

I give this one an enthusiastic thumbs-up. While the content matter is a bit much for most audiences, if you can handle a lesbian love affair that isn't glossed over or shown for titillation's sake, you'll like this one. I did have problems with Sue's character at first, but when the big twist comes, I guarantee that you'll become a bit more sympathetic for her.

Happily recommended, with four solid stars.

BBC does it again. The first time it was Tipping the Velvet, a much more saucy book and TV adaptation. This time, Fingersmith is more subtle but is marvellously done. If you are a fan of the book, then you will not be disappointed at all. At first glance I thought the two lead characters didn't really look like I would have imagined them to be. But as the movie went on they really grew into their characters and everything was wonderfully done. I thought it would be hard to do because the first part and second part of the book are in two different views of the two girls but the TV adaptation did a good job of that too. Costumes, sets, acting, accents, were all great!

Finally, a break out film about love between women. The story is rich and deep, the story twists are brilliantly executed, and the costumes and period takes are flawless. Superb setting backdropped by 1860's England. Sarah Waters has created another wonderful cracking good tale! The plot twist is a stroke of genious! You could never imagine it coming!! The two actresses are absolutely lovely and completely engaging in a very believable budding first love, with tortured betrayal as an underlying current of intrigue. The love scenes are just exquisite; innocence and passion combine in a breathless buildup. Tastefully filmed with romantic lighting and the warmth of the two young women weaving tenderness into the theme of all of the characters self interest. Finally, a gigantic leap beyond the contrived and typically shallow pieces that aren't a story, but bad acting as an excuse to film women awkwardly having sex when no one believes what they are seeing. You can fill two evenings falling in love with these women in two separate episodes.

Being a huge fan of the book, I could not wait to see this story played out on the screen, and I must say, I was not disappointed at all. This was a wonderful movie, and I would highly recommend it. The story of Sue Trinder and Maud Lilly unfolds brilliantly, and follows the book very well. Granted, there are some things from the book that did not make it into the film, but there is only so much that will fit into three hours. While the book is told from the perspective of Sue in Part 1 and of Maud in Part 2, the film also captures the ability to do the same. If you are a fan of Sarah Waters and enjoyed reading "Fingersmith," or if you have read or seen "Tipping the Velvet," also by Sarah Waters, I can assure you, you will love this film.

This is a really excellent movie! It isn't a cheesy low-budget lesbian movie like most of them. It has a real twist, and is exciting with sexy scenes in it as well. If you liked "Tipping The Velvet", then you will definatly enjoy this movie!

Maybe it's because I loved the book so much, but I was let down by this adaptation. It seemed that the BBC were too timid to do what was nessisary to make the story work.

There are wonderful things about the series. It is obvious that after the success of Tipping the Velvet, the BBC decided to spend more money on their second Sarah Waters adaptation. It is a great looking production. The costumes and sets are top notch. The casting was generally excellent, and the two female leads were flawless choices - exactly right - as was Mrs. Sucksby.

Unfortunately, I thought that the writing and the direction didn't support the great cast and production values. Its greatest overall fault is lack of depth. For all its twisty plot, melodramatic conventions and colorful Victorian background, the original book is primarily a love story between two wonderfully realized, entirely human, fully rounded, women. In the adaptation, the writer and director hurry the story so swiftly along that it doesn't have time to show us this relationship in all its richness, passion and heartbreak, or reveal to us much of the underlying characters of Maud and Sue. Sue in particular seems to have been unexplored. We get very little of her interior life at all.

Also, some important things are left so implied that I would be surprised if viewers who hadn't read the book would understand them. Maud's Uncle's work, for instance, is so glossed over that later scenes are nearly impossible to understand, such as why the bookdealer Mr. Hawtrey won't help her. One also never learns that Sue might have mixed emotions about Maud in the second episode.

I know it must have been very difficult to trim such a twisty, complicated novel down to three hour long episodes, and I couldn't say how it could have been done better, but if it couldn't, then perhaps it shouldn't have been done at all.

The three stars are for Sally Hawkins, Elaine Cassidy, and Imelda Staunton. The greatest heartbreak of this series is realizing what this amazing cast could have done if the story had been better told. What a pearl that would have been.

Normally during a book-to-movie adaptation, elements of the story are lost and I finish being rather disappointed... that did not happen with this mini-series. The beautiful spiderweb of events was woven perfectly on-screen; I found myself laughing and crying as the love story unfolds. The book was wonderful and movie did the book justice. It's fantastic (and coming from me, there is no better compliment!)