This adaptation left me completely cold. The production values are marvelous, but the characterization and performance of nearly every single character is off.
Rosalie Otterbourne, for example, daughter of the alcoholic, failing novelist. The book describes a young woman devoted to her mother no matter what, fighting to thwart her mother's drinking while struggling to hide her pain and humiliation at her mother's highly public demise. But this adaptation gives us a daughter who's more annoyed than anything else. We get no sense she loves her mother at all, so we don't sympathize with her plight.
Likewise, Tim Allerton, in the book a charming, overall decent bloke with a terrific mother he both loves and likes. Here he's sleazy, affected and generally weird with a mother who acts more like we'd expect Mrs. Otterbourne to behave. We see no attraction between Rosalie and Tim at all; it's bizarre when she kisses him out of the blue near the end.
Mrs. Van Schuyler isn't snooty enough, Mrs. Otterbourne not nearly boozy enough.
Yet even these problems pale next to Linnet and Jackie. Emily Blunt has given fantastic performances in other projects, but she doesn't capture Linnet's elitism and inborn arrogance, her deep-rooted assumption that she will always, always get what she wants. Nor is she glamorous enough, "big" enough like Lois Chiles in the 1970s version. Her presence is strangely weak, so much so that her murder makes little to no impact on the audience.
And Jackie, well, she's bland too. This character must be like a tightly coiled panther, sleek, intense and fiery. She's far too meh here, too vanilla. You really can't imagine her chasing a former lover and his new wife all over the globe.
Rosalie Otterbourne, for example, daughter of the alcoholic, failing novelist. The book describes a young woman devoted to her mother no matter what, fighting to thwart her mother's drinking while struggling to hide her pain and humiliation at her mother's highly public demise. But this adaptation gives us a daughter who's more annoyed than anything else. We get no sense she loves her mother at all, so we don't sympathize with her plight.
Likewise, Tim Allerton, in the book a charming, overall decent bloke with a terrific mother he both loves and likes. Here he's sleazy, affected and generally weird with a mother who acts more like we'd expect Mrs. Otterbourne to behave. We see no attraction between Rosalie and Tim at all; it's bizarre when she kisses him out of the blue near the end.
Mrs. Van Schuyler isn't snooty enough, Mrs. Otterbourne not nearly boozy enough.
Yet even these problems pale next to Linnet and Jackie. Emily Blunt has given fantastic performances in other projects, but she doesn't capture Linnet's elitism and inborn arrogance, her deep-rooted assumption that she will always, always get what she wants. Nor is she glamorous enough, "big" enough like Lois Chiles in the 1970s version. Her presence is strangely weak, so much so that her murder makes little to no impact on the audience.
And Jackie, well, she's bland too. This character must be like a tightly coiled panther, sleek, intense and fiery. She's far too meh here, too vanilla. You really can't imagine her chasing a former lover and his new wife all over the globe.