Great locations, beautiful shots, good if not impressive acting (except for the exceptional Watson). The only thing this movie suffers from is the story itself. The script necessarily pares down the story to its essence - but a good deal is lost in the translation. George Eliot's intelligence has been all but wrung out in favor of a questionable love story between Maggie and her brother Tom.
This is the kind of production that takes the points of the plot and hits you with them scene by scene - bang bang bang. At the beginning, we are promised a truly artistic treatment with shots of the mill itself and the beautiful English countryside. But by the end we are bombarded with events without reflection and character motivations that are baffling. It's like watching someone write a sentence out on lined paper - realizing that there won't be room to fit it all on one line, the letters get smashed together towards the end so there is no punctuation, no style, and no white space at all.
This is the kind of production that takes the points of the plot and hits you with them scene by scene - bang bang bang. At the beginning, we are promised a truly artistic treatment with shots of the mill itself and the beautiful English countryside. But by the end we are bombarded with events without reflection and character motivations that are baffling. It's like watching someone write a sentence out on lined paper - realizing that there won't be room to fit it all on one line, the letters get smashed together towards the end so there is no punctuation, no style, and no white space at all.