Great Expectations review: Dickens gets a lurid, Peaky Blinders update
Olivia Colman and Fionn Whitehead lead the FX miniseries, which makes it clear over and over (and over): This ain’t your daddy’s Dickens
Moments into FX’s gritty retelling of Great Expectations, which premieres March 26 on Hulu, the show makes its intentions known: This ain’t your daddy’s Dickens. It’s a point the show makes ad nauseam. In 1861, Dickens introduced us to our protagonist Pip Gargery through a goofy explanation of his name. This year’s Expectations, creator Steven Knight’s second stab at Dickens, begins with Pip (Fionn Whitehead) hanging himself. Let the pearl-clutching commence, for this is Masterpiece Theater: Dark.
Suicide, BDSM, drug addiction, and violence adorn Knight’s “re-imagining,” giving Great Expectations a Peaky Blinders update. Knight, who created Blinders and gave the world Hot Scrooge in 2019’s Christmas Carol, pens an entertaining and pulpy adaptation of a book some would rather eat a savory pie filled with cement than read. It also comes across as a desperate attempt at being a “gritty reboot,” transforming Pip Gargery and Miss Havisham into an opium addict and quip-ready heroine, respectively.
After our star takes the plunge, we flash back to young Pip (Tom Sweet), who, like many characters in Great Expectations, is an orphan. Raised by his abusive sister Sara (Hayley Squires) and her empathetic blacksmith husband Joe (Owen McDonnell), Pip resides in the grimy marshes outside of London as he dreams of a better life. And grimy they are. Directors Brady Hood and Samira Radsi never miss a plop as Pip trudges through the muck and mire that make the squalor of Oliver! look like the Savoy.
Every night, Pip watches ships as they cross the marshes, carrying prisoners to Australia. On Christmas Eve, an escapee crosses Pip’s path. Pip, one of the few genuinely good-hearted characters here, treats the man kindly, forever changing the boy’s expectations—and those expectations pay off quickly. As luck would have it, Pip’s uncle Pumblechuck (the perfectly cast Matt Berry), a go-between for the haves and haves not, informs the family the ghostly, reclusive spinster Miss Havisham (Olivia Colman) requires a playmate for her daughter Estella (played by Chloe Lea as a child and Shalom Brune-Franklin as a teen). Naturally, they’re more than happy for Pip to take the job.
