The story has been updated by director Alfonso Cuarón, who moves it from Victorian England to a crumbling neo-Gothic mansion in Florida. It stars Ethan Hawke as Finn (Pip in the book), and Gwyneth Paltrow as Estella, the beautiful niece of the eccentric millionairess Ms. Dinsmoor (Anne Bancroft). Their paths cross in one of those backwaters of Florida that have been immortalized by writers like Elmore Leonard and John D. MacDonald, where creeping condos from the North have not yet dislodged small fishing shacks and the huge masonry pile of Paradiso Perduto, which once was a glittering showplace but is now engulfed in trees and creepers, and falling into decay.
Finn lives with his sister Maggie and "her man," Joe (Chris Cooper), who raises him after Maggie disappears. One day he is seen by Ms. Dinsmoor, who invites him to Paradiso Perduto to play with her niece. The two children are about 10. Finn is a gifted artist, and as he sketches the young girl, the old crone perceives that he will eventually fall in love with the girl and sees her chance for revenge against men.
The original of Ms. Dinsmoor is of course Dickens' Miss Havisham, one of the most colorful and pathetic characters in Dickens, who was left stranded on her wedding day by a faithless lover. This version of "Great Expectations" spares us the sight of her wedding cake, covered in cobwebs after the decades (in Florida, tiny visitors would make short work of that feast). But it succeeds in making Ms. Dinsmore equally sad and venomous, and Anne Bancroft's performance is interesting: Despite the weird eye makeup and the cigarettes, despite the flamboyant clothing, she is human, and not without humor. "That's the biggest cat I've ever seen," Finn says on his first visit. "What do you feed it?" She waits for a beat. "Other cats," she says.
Paradiso Perduto and its inhabitant reminded me of "Grey Gardens," the 1976 documentary about two relatives of Jackie Onassis who lived in a decaying mansion in East Hampton with countless cats. There is the same sense of defiance: If I was once young, rich and beautiful, these women say to the world, see what you have made of me! Cuarón, whose previous film was "The Little Princess," brings a touch of magic realism to the setting, with weeping willows, skies filled with sea birds, and a scene where Finn and Estella dance to "Besame Mucho" while Ms. Dinsmore looks on, cold-eyed.
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