The Woman in White (1998) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I find it unusual that the reviews of this movie are so skewed at the very ends of the continuum of great to horrible. Whenever this happens, I am tempted to see the movie and judge for myself. That is what I suggest to viewers here. I have both read the book and seen the movie, and I, unusually it seems, like both. I obviously do not require pedantic faithfulness to the book in order to have a resulting good story.
It would take a lengthy mini-series to present this story as Wilkie Collins wrote it, and it is a magnificent book, in conception as well as in execution. It is written from the perspective of several characters in the book, and the differing viewpoints and their presentations are remarkably well done by Collins. The Moonstone may be the more popular of the two books, but Collins himself recognized the literary grandeur of The Woman in White, noting his authorship of it, not of The Moonstone, on his tombstone.
It would be immensely difficult, in my opinion, and probably would cost too much, to bring the book faithfully to the movie or television screen. This version is as good as we are likely to see, and, again in my opinion, this is a good version. If one has not read the book, and, as a practical matter, I think most viewers will not have, one will find this a compelling story, well told and uniformly well acted. Why should not those who have not read the book become familiar with Collins and this story and be entertained by it -- even if it is not entirely, or even largely, faith to the book? After all, there are many books that are not faithfully brought to production, but that does not necessarily mean that the story, as revised to fit time and pecuniary restraints of production, will not be entertaining. This story is.
So try it for yourself, even if you have read the book, and judge for yourself. Whenever I see such emotionally negative reviews, and when they are so intensely stated, resulting in so obviously distorted a view of the subject movie, I wonder if there is a reason, such as a somewhat narrow and tiresome attempt at display of learning (e.g., the reviewer, among few others sufficiently erudite, knows that this movie is quite different from the book), that accounts for the negativism, with no thought being given to the entertainment value of the movie, which should be the primary criterion of review.

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Set in the late 19th century, this adaptation of Wilkie Collins' mystery thriller is a slowly unraveling nightmare that reveals a dark world of powerful and dangerous men.A young drawing master, Mr. Hartright (Andrew Lincoln), is hired by the fretful Mr. Fairlie (Ian Richardson) to teach his two nieces, Marian (Tara Fitzgerald) and Laura (Justine Waddell). On his way to their house, Hartright is startled by a mysterious encounter with a ghostly woman dressed in white.When he meets Fairlie's nieces, he is struck by Laura's resemblance to the woman in white, and tells Marian and Laura of the ethereal woman. Determined to learn all they can about the woman in white, the girls find themselves drawn into a vortex of secrets, crime and treacherous involvement with the fascinating, but sinister, Count Fosco (Simon Callow).

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