There are only a finite number of British actors available to work in period miniseries, and I have seen them all. Sometimes more than twice. They appear in the empire of BBC adaptations as created by Andrew Davies: Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House, and The Way We Live Now (et al.).
This 5-hour rendition of Anthony Trollope’s 500+ page novel follows the intersecting fortunes of two families — the Melmottes and the Carburys — and numerous people connected to them. Neither are admirably headed. M. Melmotte (David Suchet, aka Hercule Poirot) is an unsavory high-stakes stock swindler, while Felix Carbury (played by the pathetic excuse for a Mr. Darcy in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice) is an unsavory gad-about-town who gambles and drinks away his limited fortune.
There’s also Mrs. Hurtle, American caricature (Eowyn, doing her worst Scarlett O’Hara accent), Mr Alf., played straight by Rob Brydon (Toby Shandy), Marie Melmotte (a Frenchwoman played by a Scottish actress, who was also in Tristram Shandy), Lady Longstaffe (Mrs. Badger in Bleak House and Mrs. Gardiner in Pride and Prejudice), the maid Dido (Lilo Baur, who reprises her dour French maid performance in Bleak House), Dolly Longstaffe (also in Bleak House) and the only believable American accent, Hamilton K. Fisker (played by a Canadian).
(There are also dozens of other characters played by actors appearing in BBC adaptations I have not yet seen.)
The miniseries was enjoyably campy, but (surprising for Davies) not all that faithful to the book. Twice the characters blurt out the title, which never occurs in the book, and there are some ridiculous, anachronistic assertions about sexual behavior. But the two things that really bugged me were places where the original text was more provocative than what ended up on screen.
First, Marie Melmotte’s character. In the book, she starts out like most of the other young women: complete milquetoast, content to follow the demands of her family (or remain quietly sullen about them). She falls for Felix Carbury, mostly because he pays any attention to her whatsoever. When he spurns her, she sobs in the requisite manner, while he’s so indifferent he can’t be bothered to steal her immense fortune. In the end, she emerges as a powerful foe, refusing to bail out her father’s pyramid scheme and letting his life end in ruin.
The outcome in the series is the same, but the build-up is all wrong. The movie Marie is wild from the start, defiant and bitter (and dubiously French-accented, but whatever). There’s no surprise when she refuses to save her wretched family. While there are some off-handed mentions of her father’s beatings, she does not look or act helpless, so it feels like there’s nothing for her to overcome. The movie strips her of her arc. She’s even robbed of her coda, in which she heads out for the American frontier.
My other complaint is in the adaptation of Melmotte’s election to Parliament. In the movie, this is a footnote: a quick scene as part of his rise to power. In the book, this occurs as part of his much longer downfall. Running as a Conservative, his peers in the gentry have already begun to distance themselves from him — there are rumors of scandal and his own nouveau-riche behavior is repugnant to them. It is almost certain that he will lose the election, but unexpectedly, he doesn’t. Why?
Because he’s voted in by the poor. Having presented himself as a man of the people, who came from the gutter and pulled himself up by his chaussures, he resonates with the masses, even though there is a legitimate, honest, populist candidate running against him. The poor hear the aristocracy condemn him and think, “They condemn us too, so this guy must be okay.” And thus he wins, when everyone knowledgable already sees that he’s a crook.
I guess this just struck me as particularly interesting these days.