Almost finished with the book, haven't seen this film yet but...

I can see they have already made some rather drastic changes from the book. These may be book or movie SPOILERS so I am warning you here...

SPOILER ALERT

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In the book:

Fanny doesn't go to boarding school, just to a nearby day school part time that she walks to, so there is no moment of revelation when she suddenly "comes home" and discovers what is happening. Her father Mr. Hopwood isn't murdered by Lord Manderstoke. Perhaps worse, he is framed for a horrific child sex murder by Manderstoke who plants the body in a nook in Hopwood's underground sex club. Hopwood inexplicably tries to escape and accidentally knocks a policeman to the pavement, which results in the policeman's death. Ultimately authorities realize there is no evidence or motive for Hopwood's having killed the child, but he is still convicted of manslaughter of the policeman and is sent to prison. His business and reputation ruined, he is a broken man and dies in prison within two years.

It is endemic to the film genre that when adapting a book for the screen it must both be condensed and have certain characters and aspects enlarged at the expense of others. This is necessary to create dramatic tension and because a movie would bog down if it faithfully conveyed all of the detail of a book. However, I think it does an injustice to the richness of the novel that Manderstoke is shown as the central, dark influence who shapes Fanny's life. While he was prominent in the two most tragic events in Fanny's life, the vast bulk of her experiences and development in life don't involve Manderstoke at all. Yet I get the impression that he is ever present in the film even as a sort of menacing background to happier scenes. Granted, I have not yet seen this film and could be prejudging. But the fact that the American title is "Man of Evil" tells me that he is the film's focus.

Lastly, based on the book I can't picture James Mason in this role at all. Manderstoke is depicted as a large, obscene and brutish animal of a man with thick unruly black hair, not the refined, calculating menace of a James Mason character.