MovieChat Forums > Crime and Punishment Discussion > Um okay well I liked it.

Um okay well I liked it.


Apparently I'm the only one?

Yes it's not like a Hollywood-budget film and had an awkward made-for-TV vibe. But I thought it was a rather faithful version and was happy with it. And I'm hard to please when it comes to movie version of books, especially books I like. I very much enjoyed it, much better than the one with Patrick Dempsey which just seemed ridiculous. Almost all the characters were just obnoxious...Dempsey was like this whiney cartoon character. Svidrigailrov was the only one I thought was good in that movie, accurate to the book's character.

Speaking of Svidrigailrov. That would be my biggest complaint about this movie. He wasn't in it. He was one of my favorite characters in the book by the end, because he was interesting and self-loathing. So I missed that in this movie. They may have tried to kinda mesh him with Luzhin in this movie, but, again, being that Svid was one of my favorite characters in the book, I didn't like that he wasn't in it.

Sonya in this movie wasn't a great actress either, I thought.

However I really thought the rest was rather good. Often times movies that try to be more faithful do fall short cinematically, so perhaps that's what happened here. And not enough time to fit whole novel in 2.5 hours, not enough time to truly develop all of Doestkovsky's themes. I'm not sure that'd even be possible to do in a film.

But really, I'm surprised how much everyone here hates it. I was happy with it and again, I'm pretty harsh with movies of books.

I also happen to be a big Crispin Glover fan, so it could be that has something to do with it. However, I've seen many 'a film that's had my favorite actors in it and many of them have been just plain awful. The actor I like isn't at all enough to save a crappy movie, trust me. I really thought Crispin did a good job with it, was even pleasantly surprised! I envisioned Rask from the book a bit more smug, but I could definitely see what Crispin was doing with his intepretation of the character. He got it. And Crispin is somewhat of an intellectual elitist in real life too so it fit for me. I'm actually not a huge fan of Raskolnikov the character, lol, but Crispin even made him a little more appealing than I'd imagined from the book, so I've got to give him that too! He captured his fevor and intensity well, plus his spite. And John Hurt was great as the detective, pretty much exactly what he was like in the book except for how he looked. There were lots of scenes that seemed very accurate from the book, like when Rask confesses to Sonya, and the cat and mouse with the detective, and just the whole notion that Raskolnikov basically incriminates himself with his odd, paranoid and intense behavior from the get-go lol.

So I'd say, 8/10. A lot of it worked very well. I was expecting to just get amusement seeing Crispin playing a role in a story that I like, which would probably be butchered. Instead I found myself greatly drawn in and thoroughly enjoying it the whole way, minus the moment I realized Svidrigailrov's character got shafted.

reply

blacknyellowsquid,

FYI, I liked it, too. It took me a few days to get through it, but glad I did.

(I've never read the book.)

"I can't bear labels."
~ Janet McTeer

reply

yay!

reply