An honorable, sober but completely unnecessary take on the Dickens novel, “Great Expectations” serves as a fine introduction to the story but won’t excite those familiar with previous versions.
Pip (played by Toby Irvine as a boy and his big brother Jeremy as an adult) is an abused working-class country orphan who has a chance encounter with an escaped prisoner (Ralph Fiennes) before wealthy spinster Miss Havisham (Helena Bonham Carter) and her adopted daughter Estella (played as a girl by Helena Barlow and later by Holliday Grainger) begin to steer him toward a gentleman’s future. It turns out that Pip has been granted a great fortune from a secret benefactor.
Fiennes is top-notch, and Bonham Carter holds back on her campy instincts, but Irvine doesn’t muster enough emotional firepower and the production has a careful, take-no-chances quality. Though this adaptation would fit in cozily on PBS’ Sunday night schedule, David Lean’s 1946 version remains the standard.