I only watched this because I had watched the 2016 Korean movie The Handmaiden and I was intrigued when I heard it was based on an English book from 2002. I wanted to see how BBC did it. However, while probably faithfully adapting the story in the book, Fingersmith is not a very good movie. It has pacing issues, logic holes and in the end, a whole lot of complications that are pointless. It is well casted, mostly played very well, so I guess the only issues are with production values and the plot, which might be blamed on the book, instead. Hindsight is always perfect, true, but if nothing else, this film shows how great The Handmaiden truly was.
The story is basically a thriller and going through it would spoil it irredeemably, but if you insist on watching Fingersmith, do try Ah-ga-ssi afterward. I thought the real star of the film was Imelda Staunton, who had only a few scenes, but was great in all of them. Both Elaine Cassidy and Sally Hawkins were cute and good in it. I thought Rupert Evans was mostly over the top, while Charles Dance appeared for a few minutes at most. He's always cool.
The story is basically a thriller and going through it would spoil it irredeemably, but if you insist on watching Fingersmith, do try Ah-ga-ssi afterward. I thought the real star of the film was Imelda Staunton, who had only a few scenes, but was great in all of them. Both Elaine Cassidy and Sally Hawkins were cute and good in it. I thought Rupert Evans was mostly over the top, while Charles Dance appeared for a few minutes at most. He's always cool.