Red-125 Our Mutual Friend (1998) is a BBC TV mini-series directed by Julian Farino.Our Mutual Friend was the last novel completed by Charles Dickens. It deals with issues about which Dickens was always concerned--social inequality, the hard lives of the poor, friendship, and love.This is one of Dickens' most complicated novels--Wikipedia lists 36 characters. The author gives each one of these characters--even the minor ones--a life and personality of her or his own.The plots is not only complicated, but somewhat forced and unrealistic. This is a movie to be enjoyed for the acting. In fact, the acting is superb. In my opinion, the best acting came from the supporting players. David Bradley portrays Roger (Rogue) Riderhood. He is a character in the novel who starts out fully evil, and ends up still fully evil. One look at Bradley and you think to yourself that here is an actor who was born to play the role.Kenneth Cranham portrays Silas Wegg, another character with no redeeming virtues. Katy Murphy is excellent as Jenny Wren, a doll's dressmaker. Although Jenny is small, apparently has scoliosis, and is "lame," she has a warm and kind heart. Martin Hancock portrays Sloppy, a young man who is also warm and kind. He too has disabilities, which he strives to overcome.The two female leads are both lovely, but in a very different way. Keeley Hawes portrays Lizzie Hexam, who is beautiful in an ethereal, Pre-Raphaelite way. She is one of the only characters who is truly good from the beginning until the end of the novel.The other female lead, Bella Wilfer, starts out the movie obsessed with obtaining money. In Victorian times, this meant marrying a wealthy man. In the beginning of the novel, a marriage of this type appears fully open to her. However, matters don't go smoothly. Bella is a character who matures and changes as the novel progresses. Anna Friel plays Bella. Director Farino chose a actress with perfect beauty, who can portray a woman with almost no warmth or concern for others.All the actors in this movie are highly talented. However, I give acting honors to Timothy Spall as Mr. Venus. Venus is a taxidermist and "articulator of bones." There is a calculation in everything he does. You can see it in his eyes and in his mannerisms. The man oozes calculation, desire, and venality. It would be worth seeing the movie just to watch Spall act.Because this film was made for TV, it works well on the small screen. Because it was produced by the BBC, it has high production values. I was pleased to learn that "Our Mutual Friend" has an IMDb rating of 8.3, which is extraordinarily high. If you love Dickens--or even if you don't--this is a movie you'll want to see. Don't miss it!

Robert J. Maxwell I was confused throughout most of this series, regarding the characters and their relationships to one another, so much so that I wonder if I watched the episodes in their proper order. All, however, was resolves in Episode Four. I made certain I watched it last.Like the other BBC renditions of Dickens, it's obviously a classy production. In a way, the narrative threads -- which perplexed me -- are just the icing on the cake anyway, because the production values here are so high and so persuasively accurate that it's like watching a five-hour ethnography of London in the 1840s. I've never seen such filth. All of Dickens' works involve the poor, but these "boat people" are at the very bottom of the scale.They live in and around the mud on the banks of the Thames and they cart away cinders from heaps of ashes to be sold for making bricks. And I always thought I had it bad. Timothy Spall, as the humble but good Mr. Venus, hauls garbage in its various configurations from the river to refurbish and resell them -- cast-off clothing, discarded umbrellas, carcasses of animals and humans, bits of metal, glass jars, dolls. He's managed to accumulate enough human bones -- a femur here, a calcaneus there -- to assemble an almost complete human skeleton, of which he is justly proud. It engenders one of those choice bits of Dickensian prose. Mr. Venus is associating with a respectable woman and he's hopeful that, if they are ever married, his profession won't lead to "her being regarded in a bony light." I love it when they say things like that. Elsewhere, Dickens has a character exclaim: "Oh, joy! What a reversal of desolation!" No wonder W. C. Fields was so convincing as Mr. Micawber.Dickens clearly means to direct our attention to the plight of the poor. These are people who, when they grow old and die, crawl off under a bush and expire alone like worn-out animals.Yet Dickens doesn't romanticize his disenfranchised. There is at least as much evil among them as there is among the rich. And this is a typical story for him -- hidden wills, marriage above or below one's station, intrigues to lay hands on an inheritance, blackmail, that sort of thing. But Dickens was no revolutionary -- not, at least, judging from those of his works that I'm familiar with. Everything can be solved by truth, charity, and justice. Well, sometimes.Being a scavenger in the rubbish heaps or the cholera-ridden cloaca that was the Thames was in fact a dangerous business. Disease was rampant, especially among children, at the time. That was all before Britain's National Health Care, of course. It's curious that, as I write this, there is such a hateful outcry against even the slightest form of improvement in health care in the United States. I'm compelled to believe that there are Americans of some number who wouldn't object to a return to the health delivery system of Dickensian London. If poor people had any ambition they wouldn't get ill in the first place. Social Darwinism redux. Herbert Spencer is applauding from beyond the grave. Scrooge would have approved too.All the performances are at least adequate and some are better than that. Anna Friel as Bella is outstanding. She's not afraid to talk and eat at the same time. The Make Up Department should get a medal. What overblown blowziness! The teeth of the poor are especially well done. They seem to hang in the air by themselves as things do in especially amorphous nightmares.But I think I may have worn out my enthusiasm for the Dickens series. Maybe it was my own fault. Maybe I DID mix up the episodes. But it seemed a little tiresome -- long, mostly sad, and complicated. Made me want to watch a Bugs Bunny cartoon or eat some sherbet or something to clean my palate. But they're so well executed that I'm sure I'll get back to them after a year or two in a straight jacket so I don't slit my wrists.

walter_gibson I've been recently seeing so many good adaptations of classical novels into mini-series, that I am becoming convinced they should never be made into feature length at all. I saw this on video all at once, which was almost six hours long. But, I could not stop watching. The character and plot developed so well, it was like reading a novel in one go. I don't often have the endurance to read a novel in one go. I must be honest I have not read 'Our Mutual Friend'. Often, when I see an adaptation of a novel, I want to read the novel. But this adaptation was so satisfying that I didn't really feel that need.The performances were slightly varied in style, which seemed to suggest that it was the actors who had the control, not the director. David Morrissey's Bradley Headstone was very realistic, portraying him as a kind of ready to burst, angry and passionate man, as his face often changed color with anger, despair, passion and fear. So Keeley Hawes as Lizzie Hexam, being intimidated by and scared of Headstone was believable. I'd seen Keeley Hawes in the 'Begger Bride' before this, and I was fairly impressed by her portrayal of a completely virtuous character. She easily portrayed the mild, beautiful, and so very modest girl. This adaptation also had the biggest TV role for Anna Friel at the time. And she was surprisingly good, and I always will expect her to play the feisty role, which is not a bad thing.So, nice one.

MrBigglesworth I saw this as soon as it came out on Masterpiece Theater and loved it! All the actors did a wonderful portrayal of the characters. (one of my particular favorites is Mr.Venus) The Boffins were superb, Lizzie was fabulous, everyone had the BEST facial expressions! . . . I could go on forever! :o) If you haven't seen it, you definitely should. It is really worth the full 6 hours.