Cast list here. It goes without saying that there will be spoilers, but I'm saying it anyway, because this particular tale is a mystery (hence the title!) with lots of twists and turns, so if you plan to see it, you should really do so before you read this. And now, here we go . . .
We get an interesting half-light, half-shadow effect on Jasper's face as he talks with Crisparkle -- very sinister . . .
Tamzin Merchant's Rosa has all the petulance but not all the charm that Rosa is supposed to have, it strikes me. Freddie Fox and Matthew Rhys are both successfully capturing their characters so far, though, Fox's childish appearance notwithstanding. I've always had a soft spot for Edwin despite the complacency that some critics dislike in him, and Fox has both the complacency and the likability in spades.
The Crisparkles at home are quite delightful -- they've got a nice, teasing, homey relationship down pat. Durdles and Deputy have a nice little domestic scene going too, at least till the smack on the head.
Oh, and here's something we don't usually get to see -- Jasper teaching. Rhys is clearly having a blast here, hamming it up like a deranged combination of Henry Higgins and Hannibal Lecter. And there's just a hint that he actually enjoys and gets more out of his music than he admits. Far too short a scene, this -- which brings up another point: A lot of these scenes, though very good on the whole, feel a bit too short and too rushed.
Oh goody, we get the Sapsea epitaph!
Ron Cook makes a really fantastic Durdles -- I'll go so far as to say that, despite all the other good performances around him, he's the standout in the cast so far. This deadpan, understated thing he has going is perfect, and makes him a great foil for Jasper.
And now we get to Neville and Helena, and in the latter I think we just might have another standout. Amber Rose Revah's performance is striking from the start; she has tremendous presence even when she's just sitting still. In fact, her quietness only seems to enhance her force -- I don't think I've ever seen someone sit still with such intensity! She's perfectly cast as Helena. When Neville says she took their stepfather's beatings without a tear, you believe it.
The fight at Jasper's goes quickly -- extremely quickly. They really are galloping through some of this. Rev. Crisparkle is excellent with Neville. I haven't mentioned much about Rory Kinnear's performance yet, but it's a solid one, balancing the gentle and the firm aspects of the clergyman very nicely. The writing for him is particularly good too, I think.
More about destiny and choice -- quite the recurring theme here. Then a nice little serious scene for Edwin, though it's a bit out of character. And then Crisparkle with Helena and Neville again. Points to Crisparkle for honesty. He could so easily turn patronizing here, but he doesn't go that way at all.
I like the scene with Jasper and Grewgious, though why Jasper should start spouting hymns immediately afteward, I've no idea. There's something a little odd about the scene with Edwin and Rosa. It seems like perhaps he really does have feelings for her after all, which would be a strange twist . . .
Things suddenly turn farcical, with people shoving each other around the churchyard, and then Princess Puffer reveals a bit more to Edwin than expected. It seems Gwyneth Hughes went a bit further than just adding her own scenes -- she's doing new things with Dickens's original scenes, too.
Edwin and Neville have a rather odd conversation in the cathedral, interspersed with what looks like an anti-drug public service announcement going on at Jasper's place. And then, we watch him head off to the cathedral and murder Edwin. This is definitely something new. Jasper has quite a good scene the next morning, when he's not exactly sure if he actually did it.
In Sapsea's office, Neville reveals that Edwin -- is his brother? Hang on, my brain just exploded! It seems Drood Sr. got up to a bit of no good in Ceylon, with a woman who wasn't his wife, and Neville and Helena were the result. Well, there's an original twist and no mistake. Another original twist is Mrs. Crisparkle being almost a bigger drug supplier than Princess Puffer. I know the woman has her faults, but good grief.
(The cynic in me whispers that Hughes lets her own scenes play out longer than Dickens's. Now that we're getting exclusively into her territory, things are losing that rushed feel.)
David Dawson's Bazzard captures my heart instantly with his bored and disgusted announcement of the mail. He's quite eager to go off to Cloisterham and do research, though. I think I see what's coming here . . .
Helena and Crisparkle's relationship is heating up rapidly. They didn't do much earlier to build up to that -- but her kiss and his look are so appealing, I'm sold!
Quite a change in Jasper's manner here, with Rosa. A little too much of a change, perhaps, as he seems to suddenly ditch all the guilt over Edmund. But he successfully makes himself loathsome and predatory. And that cheery little smile on "I will pursue you to the death," as he goes, is chilling.
Deputy has such an angelic face for such a little stinker. Poor sheep. Seems to me that in this version Deputy throws stones at everyone but Durdles.
Aha! I was right. Bazzard is Datchery, without even a disguise. Just as well -- I kind of like the way he looks without one. And I'm still loving his performance. Standout number three, we have here. (Hey, we all know I have a thing for Dickens's disheveled members of the legal profession.)
Is it just me, or is Neville's abrupt transition to thinking of Rosa as a "beloved sister" a little lame and unbelievable?
Helena stands up to Jasper admirably -- I confess to a sneaking desire to see her lay him out flat, but it doesn't come to that. However, just her words are enough to reduce him to a sniveling little wimp. (Matthew Rhys makes the oddest faces when he cries.) Nice, Helena! And now at last Jasper gets the news of the broken engagement. Dickens did that much better. For one thing, Jasper doesn't faint here . . . which reminds me, Rosa didn't turn faint either, back in the scene with the piano. Fainting seems to have gone out of fashion in adaptations these days.
Am I the only one who thinks Rosa is being criminally stupid to go off with Jasper? Good Lord, girl, you know he's off his head!
More of deadpan Durdle -- just priceless. Crisparkle's concern for that imp of a Deputy is rather comical, though sweet. These guys make a great team, and this whole bit in the cathedral, with the back and forth between the altar and the tomb, is really good. Rosa finally evades Jasper and runs off, and oh, hello, Edwin. EDWIN!? Lo and behold, here he is, alive and well! He just took off and didn't write to Rosa because he was -- angry. Weird. Well, it means the earlier maybe-he-really-did-love-her vibe was there for a reason, to set this up, but it feels a little shoehorned in.
(Funny -- in most versions we don't see Edwin's murder, but it really happens; in this one we did see the murder but it didn't happen!)
So Jasper killed Edwin's father, who was -- wait -- Jasper's father too?? Exactly how did Drood Sr. have time to be an engineer when he was running around siring children all over the place? Crisparkle gets everyone to leave and says he and Jasper will be fine together. If he's about to say that old Drood was his father as well -- no, turns out he just wants to offer him counsel and help. Really a sweet guy, Crisparkle.
I'm not sure how Edwin heard all that about the family relationships, but somehow he did, and shows up to try to help too, but Jasper's lost to reality at this point and thinks he's a hallucination. His craziness and creepiness are very well done by Rhys. He runs off and starts climbing and we get a grim shot of him sitting up in the -- whatever you call it, I'm not up on my cathedral terminology -- looking like an especially glum gargoyle, before he plunges to his death.
We finish things off nicely with . . . Neville not being into Rosa anymore and Edwin never having been into Helena, and not seeming to have feelings for Rosa anymore either. Huh. (And half the people in this room were fathered by Edwin Drood, senior, which is just freaky.) At least that leaves room for a lovely little final scene for Helena and Crisparkle, who really do make a charming couple.
I'll leave off here for now; I had a few concluding thoughts to share, but I'm pressed for time, so they'll keep till tomorrow. Feel free to share yours, though!
My favorite characters were definitely Helena & Bazzard.
Things I learned from this mini-series: (1) Opium will mess you up. (2) Being a bastard son makes you really angry and prone to violence (c.f. Neville & Jasper.)
I've never read the original (I know, I know!), so color me confused when I read the actual plot over at Wikipedia.
(Rosa Bud? Seriously, Charles Dickens?! Poor girl.)
Posted by: Elizabeth R | April 15, 2012 at 11:49 PM
This production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood was not any relative of the story by Dickens. We read the book (with someone else's finish...after Chapter 22, I believe) and are huge fans of the movie with Claude Rains. This production, although very handsome and the acting great, was not the same story. Read the book, regardless of who finished it. By the time you get to Chapter 22 (where Dickens left off) you will have an idea where the story goes, and it's not where that dreadful screenwriter led us: where did she come up with a Daddy Drood, and Daddy Drood being everybody's father??? Good night, what a fantasy. I guess the screenwriter never read the story. Not even real "Droodies" would have dreamed up that mess.
Posted by: Ann Cary | April 16, 2012 at 01:49 AM
I liked it a lot. I am actually not familiar with the story, so this is my first introduction to it. I guessed that the slew of bastard children might be a modern invention but I wasn't sure how much of it was. I might have to read it now. The wikipedia article displayed letters to John Forster giving the impression that it was to be a fairly straightforward morality tale.
I like that this took a different route.
I think by the end that it does not so much matter that John Jasper did it, so making him not actually guilty of killing who he thought he had killed was a good plot move. What did matter was that he was mentally self-destructing (even more than he already was) because HE was convinced he had done it. I think the art of the story in the movie was in watching him struggle with what little moral compass that he had and then cast it away entirely in his threatening of Rosa. The vestiges of a conscience still haunt him in his subconscious, though, so they aren't entirely gone. He still has a thread of goodness, albeit a small one.
I trust that Dickens would have come up with a way to make him not entirely unsympathetic. I think Dickens could do a better job of analysing a criminal objectively than, say a modern weekly morality show like CSI, which is kind of what the letters to Forster made the overall plot out to be.
Anyway, there you go. I loved it. My only criticism would be that Edwin's personality was fairly uneven--he was a jerk at the beginning and then decides to be BFF with Rosa and we weren't really given any clues in his character as to why he would suddenly be nice to her. Johns Jasper is rather manic, and I can beleive that's part of his personality, but he seems to bounce from being horrified of what he's done to being ready to take off and start a new life with "Fantasy Rosa".
Also, Bazzard was awesome. <3
Posted by: scrabcake | April 16, 2012 at 11:40 AM
Loved Bazzard too--wish we'd seen more of him. I'm OK with Edwin running off to Egypt when the wedding is called off,but the twist with Drood, Sr. being Jasper's father was unnecessary --I think an addict's obsession with Rosa was enough for hallucinations of killing Edwin. However, I did like the idea of Jasper losing the distinction between reality and opium dreams, and the viewer not knowing either.
Posted by: Carmen | April 16, 2012 at 01:09 PM
Also, us engineers* lead a life on the edge. It's all about the drugs and loose morals and hard living.
*well, software ones at least.
Posted by: scrabcake | April 16, 2012 at 03:42 PM