the best adaptation to-date


I just watched this film again and was astounded at how much I enjoyed a second viewing. It's not an easy film to watch, it demands your attention throughout and I confess to a limited attention span these days. It has brilliant performances, the script is pretty much faithful to the book and if I consciously choose to not cringe at some over the top performances, it's pretty damn perfect. Okay, making myself clearer here: I found in particular, that the actress portraying Sonya could have been a bit more subtle. It rings a bit off in my ears when she's wailing like that facing Raskolnikov's painful but - comparatively - restrained torment. But that's just piffle, the film is amazing and in particular Porfiry's character is absolute genius! Which brings me to my last point. As a fan of the book, I was excited to hear of the bbc's production of Crime and Punishment starring John Simm as Raskolnikov and Ian McDiarmid as Porfiry. After I watched it I was... hhhm... some very good elements, but overall not really there. Having seen this version, a few years later, I realised that, well, all the good elements that the bbc's version had were literally taken from this film. I still admire McDiarmid's performance but, I know that somebody did it, and better, years ago! Even the way whole scenes were filmed, where the characters were, what were they doing, was the same. If the makers of the bbc version made a homage to the Russian film, well, good for them, and John Simm and the rest of the cast were wonderful. It just kinda feels like a rip-off now to me...

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