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Sprawling, like most works based upon Charles Dickens, but completely enthralling, Bleak House is yet another great adaptation from BBC. Who knew that a tale of inheritance, mysterious lineage, murder, and a smallpox scare could be so engrossing?
This could have easily drifted towards glossy, handsome but incredibly dull stuff, but it’s not. Praise be to Andrew Davies script and the direction from Susanna White and Justin Chadwick for keeping this thing moving. And for being roughly eight hours, or so, it really does roll along with a fluid pace. No moments of dead weight or wheel-spinning.
There’s a large amount of characters to introduce, and there isn’t a bad performance in the bunch. Granted, there’s only a handful of characters that recur, and they’re performed brilliantly. Anna Maxwell Martin anchors the entire thing as Esther Summerson, an orphan with questionable paternal lineage. Carey Mulligan and Patrick Kennedy are the lovers embroiled in the inheritance lawsuit that occupies so much of the film. Kennedy makes the obsession believable, even as that particular plot line wears a bit as the series wraps.
But if the series belong to anyone, it’s Gillian Anderson as the dark, mysterious Lady Honoria Dedlock. Her eventual reveal is slightly obvious, but Anderson sells her material with the élan of an actress who knows her strengths and what a great part this is. Her bored intonations in her first appearance linger long after the final episode ends.
Consider me a sucker for a well-made mini-series from the BBC, and I am frankly, but this is definitely one of the better ones I’ve watched in some time. The cast is fantastic from the top down, the writing is solid moving through years, characters, and numerous subplots with consummate skill, and the whole thing is so vastly captivating and entertaining.
