Bleak House review

[alobear]

The first seven and a half hours of the recent Bleak House adaptation were excellent - really well done indeed. I remember the book being funny, but the fact that the actors managed to transform the majority of Dickens' caricatures into real people and made me care very much what happened to them all made the TV version a great deal more emotive.

Then came the last episode and it seemed as if the writers suddenly realised they'd spent far too long on the rest of the story and had to wrap everything up in half an hour. Up until the last episode, everything had been fairly leisurely and explored in a great deal of detail. Then, in the space of twenty minutes, the will was found, it was discovered that the estate was no more, Richard died, Jarndyce gave Esther up, Ada had her baby, and Esther married Woodcourt. From everything all being in a mess, to everything being resolved one way or the other occurred so quickly that my head was spinning by the end of it, and I felt somewhat cheated after the lavish portrayal of the rest of the story.

It was particularly odd that Esther and Jarndyce agreed to get married in a month (at which point, Ada wasn't even showing yet), and then Ada was suddenly ready to drop and Jarndyce was taking Esther up north to give her to Woodcourt.

Hey ho - on the whole, it was really good - just a shame the end went by in such a rush.