A few follow-up thoughts on 'Edwin Drood'

Again, spoilers ahead . . .

So -- that ending. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Not that I mean to be bloodthirsty, but it seems a bit anticlimactic to have Edwin come back to life after all that. However, I give Gwyneth Hughes credit for the revelation that Jasper actually did kill someone -- it may have been a bait-and-switch, but it kept the tone appropriately dark and provided some gripping psychological drama.

By contrast, the part where Edwin Drood, Sr., turned out to be everybody's daddy felt like the laziest kind of soap-opera writing. It might -- might -- have worked had they tried it with only the twins, or with only Jasper. But with all of them? That was just plain silly.

I did enjoy the cast very much, especially the three standouts I mentioned: Ron Cook, Amber Rose Revah, and David Dawson. Rosa's portrayal could have been a little more fleshed out, and as for Jasper . . . well, it's not Matthew Rhys's fault that he's not Claude Rains. Only Claude Rains was Claude Rains, after all. But he did a fine job.

I also thought Rory Kinnear's Crisparkle was one of the best-written, best-acted portrayals of a minister I've seen in recent years. His gentle good humor, firmness balanced by compassion, and passionately sincere belief made him the kind of minister you'd want presiding over your own congregation.

The attempts at romance were only so-so -- with the exception of Helena and Crisparkle once they really got going -- and I would have liked to see less rushing in the earlier scenes. In fact, I think this production would have been well-served by a longer running time, like the nearly four hours that Great Expectations got. It really needed longer to let events unfold in a better-paced, more believable way. I also would have liked to see Hughes stick closer to Dickens's story. Obviously she had to add her own second half, but in my (admittedly purist) view, it was crossing a line to have her start changing things around so much in the material already written.

Nonetheless, I had a good time watching this film, and wouldn't mind watching it again sometime!

And now, as a treat, here's a link to an informative and helpful chart that I found, of various endings that were proposed for Edwin Drood after Dickens's death. You'll notice that it was published in 1912 -- one can only imagine how many endings have been proposed since then! (Rupert Holmes's musical alone has, what, a dozen?) Names of particular interest on the chart include G. K. Chesterton and Madame Perugini, specified here to be Kate Perugini, Dickens's daughter. I'm especially surprised to see how many people had Edwin ending up with Rosa. I thought Dickens handled that relationship, of two people who try hard to fall in love but just can't, rather well, so I never would have put them together in the end, myself.

Comments

[Selenia]

I wouldn't mind watching this film again either. I completely missed a big chunk of it (about half an hour) so I'm going to head over to PBS to check it out :).

[Nina]

I thought it was awesome (as compared to the new GE, which didn't seem like Dickens at all IMO). This could actually probably be my favorite Dickensian film (but that could also be because I didn't know much about the book - however the Wikipedia summary seemed fairly close). Everyone seemed very Dickensian (Bazzard and Durdles were especially funny) which I think is sometimes lost in the adaptations.

However, I do agree that the two-hour format was rather limiting, and that the fact that Drood was EVERYONE's father was a bit silly (although we do know that Dickens wasn't exactly realistic in his connections), as well as the method of bringing Edwin back - I think they theoretically *could* have done so without it seeming odd, but I think there needed to be a bit of buildup rather than the "o hai" version we got. I did like the Jasper-being-Edwin's-brother-bit, though I think Dickens meant to be his uncle only from the notes he left. I'd probably give it 4.5, especially for a 2 hour movie.

[Gina]

You've given me an idea, Nina . . . :-)

[Judy]

Gina, totally agree with you that Rory Kinnear in particular was excellent, but I also thought the revelations of Drood Snr being everybody's daddy, was silly. I did like the first episode of this new adaptation,but then it all went wrong. The Claude Rains film is so much better!

[Marian]

A little late here...just saw this on DVD. :) I did think the "happy" ending was a bit contrived. It took me a while to warm up to Edwin, and then as soon as I did it turned out he had run away, only to come back in the nick of time. It's also not clear to me whether he and Rosa get married in the end, sort of an ironic ending...

[Sven Karsten]

More infos and more solutions are at www.droodiana.ru

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