The Old Curiosity Shop

An insult
The product description above should read, "VERY, VERY LOOSELY based on Dickens' classic novel." Almost everything about this production is wrong and the screenwriter and director should be ashamed of themselves; they have done a terrible disservice to those of us who love the novel and to those who have not yet read it and will mistakenly believe that this DVD tells its story. The worst crime commited by those involved in this travesty is the creation of a "happy ending" to make our hearts ache a little less. What idiotic rubbish! Please, spend your money on a copy of the book, read it, and cry your eyes out; as Dickens intended you to do.

Not So Bad, Not So Great Dickens Adaptation
ITV's new adaptation of "The Old Curiosity Shop" centers on the heroine Nell Trent living with her grandfather. They are forced to flee his Old Curiosity Shop, however, when the gambling grandfather (who thinks he is doing that for her loving granddaughter) is heavily in debt to Daniel Quilp, who, it is suggested, wants not just the shop, but something else. While Quilp chases them, a mysterious lodger at the attorney Samson Brass's is also looking for the missing daughter.

Considering the meandering nature of the storytelling in Victorian novels, "The Old Curiosity Shop" (2007) is surprisingly faithful to the original book of Charles Dickens (published in book form in 1841). That is a good thing, to be sure, but there is something missing in the new adaptation, something like sense of humor.

Sophie Vavasseur ("Becoming Jane") plays the heroine Nell Trent (or "Little Nell") though she seems much older than she should be. Almost adult, I would say, which makes her...

Good actors wasted
It's a shame to do this to Dickens and to pour great talent into a wasted effort. This just aired again recenly. "Butchery" is the word that first comes to mind.

The Shop has never been considered one of Dickens best but it does have his usual cast of characters, plot twists, and tugs on your emotions (in this case an extra dose of bathos in the form of Nell).

The bathos is about all you get in this condensed version, as you might guess by the running time. Dickens's stories need time to unfold and isn't that leisurely unfolding of a tale what we expect from MPT productions? We've been robbed. The movie follows (err, rushes through . . .) the middle path of the story line, with enough substance to build the main characters and never mind anything else -- what is the story of Nell's father? Who was the guy with the parrot that took up one whole shot unexplained and was never seen or hinted at again?

It's not that you can't watch and enjoy this. Derek...

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