BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU The very first element that has to be said about this novel, or this work is that it is too intricate and characters are too complicated and intertwined in their motivations and even identities that we find it difficult to follow. The plot is slightly too thick for me.The second element is the social cruelty of the story. Cruelty against the poor, the small, the lower classes. They are working like hell making their bosses rich and they are described as having no real human feelings, no real human dimension. They are like human animals living in dirt, squalor and bleakness. It is at times unbearable how little self-respect they may have for themselves, and as for that only a few, and very few women make an effort among these poor people to be clean and keep their house and household clean.These poor are over-endowed with alcoholism and gross attitudes and habits, drinking late at night in dirty and in many ways disgusting public houses. And here is Dickens's social Darwinism. The upper classes are shown with all kinds of respectable qualities and everything is genteel with them. They drink in parties in glasses served to them on a tray by special servants, with music and beautiful dresses and suits. In these circles marriage has to be within one's own social rank, a type of social segregation particularly obnoxious, and marriage is first of all for money and nothing else, which is absolute hypocrisy, but at least in comfort and cleanliness, except for the abuse of cigars.So think of the situation in this novel of a miser of no genteel extraction and with no respectable human sentiments, who made his fortune out of the heap of dirt and rubbish collected in London and deposited up some river and sorted out with shovels by some human rats. What's more being a miser he is rejected by everyone. So his decision to give all his fortune to his son whom no one knows at all provided he marries the woman this father has set for him in his will makes the whole thing melodramatic and overwrought.So after a few murders and a lot of squalid events Dickens manages to bring up some happy ending for three young couples and an older one and a good old sound heavy moral lesson about doing what the heart is supposed to tell you to do and never be over-fascinated with money. But at the same time the only people who really suffer in this situation are the poor, even if they are shown as deserving that treatment. When you are born in the dregs of society your are bound to remain there and to end very badly.A little bit short, Mr. Dickens, and your regenerated main character is regenerated only symbolically, and he could not be rejected to the end since he was born on the right side of the silver spoon, even if this silver spoon has to be called a garbage shovel.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

flaming_nora Our Mutual Friend is my favourite on-screen adaptation to date, and there are obviously some weighty contenders.I appreciate that some people think there are too many characters, but most Dickens books are full of many and varied, wonderful characters and I think that Sandy Welch mastered the quantity in adaptation, without cutting out important characters and then sewing the plot closed around them (I still mourn the loss of Orlick from Lean's 'Great Expectations').The casting and acting in Our Mutual Friend is superb and I feel slightly guilty to pick out certain actors above the rest so I will choose only one to shower with praise, David Morrissey, who performed with such convincing emotional rawness that I hoped for some kind of redemption for Bradley Headstone.The opening scene gave me goosebumps when it first came on the BBC in 1998 and it sometimes has had that effect since, despite repeat viewings. The atmosphere captures the murk and mystery of the Thames and illustrates the ghoulish occupation of the boatmen.This murk is matched with some scenes of great beauty, lavish outdoor scenes which celebrate the English countryside, great houses, colourful costumes and the chocolate box cottage. This serves to contrast against the stench of the dust heaps and the grime of Mr Venus's home.Dear BBC, can you have Sandy or Andrew adapt Dombey and Son sometime soon?!

Brigid O Sullivan (wisewebwoman) "Our Mutual Friend," is another well done BBC adaptation of a classic Charles Dickens story, set in the complex London of 1860, beset with the poor, overseen by the unseemly rich with a class structure at it's most delineated.All of these stories deserve the mini-treatment, to allow us into the sprawl of the period and soak up its language and atmosphere and this is right up there with the best of them. The waterfront sets are magnificent as are the sets for the refuse dump where a lot of the action takes place. The cast is enormous and includes many recognised British names, from Timothy Spall, one of my personal favourites, to Margaret Tyzack, another favourite from the original "Forsyte Saga" series.Each character is well drawn and complex in all its humanity and struggle for survival. Keely Hawes shines as a woman ill suited to a life on the river, retrieving drowned corpses for their clothes and possessions, and as her counterpart, Anna Friel is sparkling with wit and beauty as a poverty stricken woman striving to acquire a rich husband.The script is authentic to Dickens and the era, underlaid with a haunting musical score and overlaid with a cinematography that sweeps from the multi-layered greys of the slums and river life to the lush English gardens of the well-to-do and their sumptuous parties.Much like the mini "Pride and Prejudice", all the plot lines sweep to a happy, clean and simple denouement in the end, but the ride is sure-footed with many interesting characters to bewitch and fascinate along the way and a suspenseful drama to hold interest.9 out of 10 and not to be missed.

Joel-12 Took a lot of my friends by surprise.They are in two basic categories:(1) Never saw the remaining parts - "TOO MANY CHARACTERS"(2) Saw Part TWO and Loved the acting - storyline - etc.(those falling into part two - still thought it had too many characters).AS USUAL - TOP NOTCH ENGLISH DRAMA - WISH USA HAD AS GOOD AS CONSISTENTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!