Little Dorrit (2008)

 

Apparently this is a good week for writing about adaptations of books but not the actual books themselves.  After the earlier post about the film of A Single Man, today’s write-up focuses on this Masterpiece miniseries of the Charles Dickens novel.  Though my chief literary-miniseries source remains Jane Austen, there have been some nice projects made based on Dickens, and this 8-hour program is terrific.

 

The Little Dorrit in question is Amy Dorrit, a young woman born in a debtor’s prison.  Thanks to her gentleman father’s profligacy, she’s spent her entire life in its shadow, taking odd jobs by day and bringing her meager earnings back to her father in the prison every night.  She’s the quiet caretaker of, not only her father, but her older brother and sister as well, along with various indigent friends.  When she forms a chance friendship with the well-to-do Arthur Clennam, the kind-hearted man seeks to improve her family’s financial situation, but she wants nothing more than his love.

 

The storytelling is a bit problematic – like Esther in Bleak House and many of Dickens’s prominent female characters, Amy is a fairly saintly Angel of the House.  It’s not an uncommon archetype for Victorian writers, but it means that Amy’s selflessness often belies belief; she’s just too much of a paragon.  Though the book doesn’t ignore Amy’s feelings about her constant, unappreciated service for her family, the miniseries does a more effective job of really dramatizing it, and that helps to ground the character a little more in this version.  Yes, she’s only really content when she’s giving of herself to others, but Claire Foy’s beautiful performance highlights her pain at the dismissive treatment she receives.

 

Because her family really is awful.  Her beloved father is the worst – she loves him so completely, is basically living entirely to serve him, and he’s utterly tone-deaf to it.  He’s forever attuned to any perceived slights at his reduced circumstances, and any time Amy says the wrong thing or shows the smallest sign of not being wholly at his beck and call, he lets loose the most insidiously passive-aggressive guilt trips to make his slavishly devoted daughter feel horrible about herself.  There’s a scene where some modest perks of his are jeopardized when Amy fails to fall in line with something that would irrevocably change her entire life, and he just goes on and on about some “friend” whose “sister” heartlessly refused to do this very insignificant thing that would’ve eased her poor destitute father’s “(I mean) brother’s” suffering.  It was a hard scene to read, but seeing it play out onscreen, where he won’t let it lie and she just silently crumbles and takes it, is so heartbreaking.

 

The miniseries excels best at softly tragic scenes like this one, but it also has a fine touch for the comic moments.  Additionally, it has an amazing cast that includes Matthew Macfadyen as Arthur, plus Andy Serkis (Gollum himself), Maxine Peake (Veronica from Shameless,) and Whoniverse folk Freema Agyeman (Martha!), Arthur Darvill (Rory!), and Eve Myles (Gwen from Torchwood.)  Everyone wonderfully realizes their characters from the book but, apart from the stellar leads, I want to single out Ruth Jones as Flora, Arthur’s old flame who hasn’t quite burned out yet, and Russell Tovey (Midshipman Frame from the Titantic episode of Doctor Who, and former History Boy) as John, the assistant turnkey besotted with Amy.