Architect Mr. Pecksniff attempts to inveigle himself into the good graces of the senior, wealthy Chuzzlewit (Scofield), via all manner of solicitousness and over the top ingratiation.
I didn't think much of Tom Wilkinson's acting skills before seeing this. But for the first hour or two he steals the show as the greedy nincompoop Pecksniff. He assays this incorrigible dope with quite a varied catalog of idiotic reactions and barely-disguised avarice. Pete Postlethwaite as an unctuous servant is amusing. The actor playing the title character telegraphs that he's the mumbling, no-good sort long before any character explicitly discuss it.
I guess my problem with this is that the narrative and its complications are so commonplace that it never drew me in, and I couldn't tell you what all the mediocre convolutions of the middle do for the story. They didn't engage me, amount to much, or stand out in the Romantic canon. And my appetite for one-dimensional bad guys was long ago filled by Hollywood blockbusters. All that and the usual, insipid, high-Victorian ending in which multiple story lines all reach their moral climax in the same 4 minutes. guh.
"Saffie" from Absolutely Fabulous is one of Pecksniff's daughters and the dimwit villager from Vicar of Dibley is the other one.
I didn't think much of Tom Wilkinson's acting skills before seeing this. But for the first hour or two he steals the show as the greedy nincompoop Pecksniff. He assays this incorrigible dope with quite a varied catalog of idiotic reactions and barely-disguised avarice. Pete Postlethwaite as an unctuous servant is amusing. The actor playing the title character telegraphs that he's the mumbling, no-good sort long before any character explicitly discuss it.
I guess my problem with this is that the narrative and its complications are so commonplace that it never drew me in, and I couldn't tell you what all the mediocre convolutions of the middle do for the story. They didn't engage me, amount to much, or stand out in the Romantic canon. And my appetite for one-dimensional bad guys was long ago filled by Hollywood blockbusters. All that and the usual, insipid, high-Victorian ending in which multiple story lines all reach their moral climax in the same 4 minutes. guh.
"Saffie" from Absolutely Fabulous is one of Pecksniff's daughters and the dimwit villager from Vicar of Dibley is the other one.