Usually BBC adaptations are outstanding; this one lacked something. As it is Dickens unfinished work it is hard to know if it was a failure on his part in the overall conception or whether the writer and director of this version just was not able to intuit where Dickens was taking this story.
The acting is good and Mathew Rhys (Brothers and Sisters) is suitably menacing as the opium raddled John Jasper. Freddie Fox is also good as the eponymous Drood, spoiled and totally self absorbed.
The arrival of the Ceylonese brother and sister provides one of the more interesting plot possibilities, but somehow the anger of the brother is never that convincing.
In the end, watching the final climax, it was possible to see exactly how it was going to end, and it ended as predicted. There was a feeling of, 'oh is that it?' A missed opportunity or maybe the book was never really worth finishing.
The acting is good and Mathew Rhys (Brothers and Sisters) is suitably menacing as the opium raddled John Jasper. Freddie Fox is also good as the eponymous Drood, spoiled and totally self absorbed.
The arrival of the Ceylonese brother and sister provides one of the more interesting plot possibilities, but somehow the anger of the brother is never that convincing.
In the end, watching the final climax, it was possible to see exactly how it was going to end, and it ended as predicted. There was a feeling of, 'oh is that it?' A missed opportunity or maybe the book was never really worth finishing.