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Summary: Another great BBC series
Review: We bought this on the strength of other reviews here, and the awesome Pride and Prejudice series. It is great. If you enjoyed P&P, you will enjoy this.
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Summary: Wives and Daughters: A Winner
Review: My aunt rented Wives and Daughter for me as a thank you for my loaning her movies from my private collection. When I first saw the title, I thought it was from a novel by D. H. Lawrence or Jane Austen. I was wrong of course, for it is from a neglected English novelist named Elizabeth Gaskell. Wives and Daighters is now one of my favorite BBC productions. Wives and Daughters is set in the fictional town of Hollingford in England. The story centers on a young girl named Molly Gibson and the people, good and bad, selfish and unselfish, shallow and deep, bigoted and tolerate, worldly and innocent, peers and the working class,and principaled and gossipy who come into her life. At the beginning of the story, Molly is being raised by her widowed father, Dr. Gibson, a caring and vigilant man. When he decides to remarry when Molly is a teenager, sparks fly. Molly has to cope with a stepmother and
step sister, Cynthia. Cynthia was educated in France, where the only thing she seems to have picked up is fashion and flirtation. She flirts, but she doesn't seem to realize her affect on men. Molly who is pretty, but not seductively buxom and glowing like Cynthia. She is loyal to her troubled step sister. She is silent and long suffering even when the young man she loves, Roger Hamley falls for Cynthia. Eventually all works out for good. Wives and Daughters draws an excellent picture of country life and manners in Victorian England. It is a coming of age tale with a cast of memorable charcters. Their conversations define them. I loved the warm smile of Roger Hamley the budding young scientist whom Molly loves, played by Tom Hollander. His character's heart is just as warm. I have been a fan of Francesca Annis since I first saw her in the Masterpiece Theater production of Lillie back in the late 70s, when I was in high school. As Molly's stepmother she is shallow, pretentious, but still almost as beautiful as she was over 25 years ago. I fell in love with Wives and Daughters so much that I had to get my own copy of the series on DVD. The photography and costumes are beautiful. Wives and Daughters is a winner!
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Summary: CONFUSED?
Review: I HAVE THE DVD VERSION AND THERE ARE TWO DISCS OF THE FEATURE, BUT THE ENDING SEEMS TO BE MISSING......ROGER NEVER RETURNS FROM AFRICA ??????????
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Summary: Good if a bit gloomy english period drama
Review: Like all Andrew davies/ BBC productions this series is very well made.The cast was well chosen,the setting and period details are all exact and the story itself is interesting and entertaining.I was looking foward to this production and was not dissapointed although I found molly a little too simple,and some parts were just a little too dramatic and gloomy.Still elizabeth gaskell has created some exceptional characters in the flighty cynthia and in hyacinth who is very much like jane austen's mrs bennet.
Costume fans [for which I am one]will love the early victorian post regency excessively puffy attire and strange hairdos.I'd reccomend this film too anyone who loves jane austen,costume or period films and especially as an introduction to the books of the unknown elizabeth gaskell.
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Summary: Another masterpiece!
Review: I read Wives and Daughters after seeing the miniseries the year before, so my interpretation might have been a little controlled, but I still loved both! Masterpiece Theatre did such a wonderful job bringing the book to life. Of course, the book was very lively in itself. I thought every character came out just as he or she should have. And the ending chosen for the miniseries I find much more interesting than the longer version Mrs.Gaskell had in mind before her death. All around fabulous!
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Summary: Wives and daughters
Review: Wonderful movie, great acting, we watch it at least once a year to recapture the "days and the lives' of these characters again, and again.
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Summary: Betrayal, Secrecy, Romance
Review: I highly recommend this movie to any of the other thousands of romantics out there. This is a story about Betrayal, Secrecy, and Romance. If you loved Jane Eyre, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, and Wuthering Heights you are sure to love this classic novel. It mystefies the mind, stirs up the soul, warms the heart. Especially at the end when Molly finds out the man she loves actually loves her back and they go to Africa, is it?, and they spend the rest of their lives, and really, all of eternity together, knowing, ah yes, finally knowing and seeing what true and meaningful love is. Not just a fancy dress that flirts with every guy she meets in order for all of them to chase her around, but finding the simple things in life, that in reality, truly ARE the most beautiful. You will see that the quaint and simple Molly is full of love and courage. She found what she had been looking for. Someone that she loved and that loved her. Bring a box of tissues along with you. This is truly a masterpiece. :)
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Summary: Must see!
Review: If you like Jane Austen you will LOVE this movie! It is one of the best movies I have ever seen! It is a sweet movie for the whole family!
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Summary: Absolutely delightful and charming tale of life in the 1820s
Review: Prior to viewing this series, I had only heard of Mrs Gaskell in connection with Charlotte Bronte (the two women were contemporaries and knew eachother as friends and writers) but had never read any of her books. This series changed my mind and has prompted me to read her novels. The series (shown on PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre") is true to the novel except for the very end, is wonderfully cast, and has lovely sets and costumes.
The story itself focuses upon Molly Gibson, the honest and virtuous daughter of the equally upright Dr. Gibson, a widower, and what happens to this happy, close father-daughter relationship when Dr. Gibson marries Hyacinth Kirkpatrick, a selfish, self-centered, petty, gossiping, meanspirited and manipulative governess and widow with a daughter, Cynthia, who is the same age as Molly, but who is different from Molly in every way possible. The series nicely shows not only the physical differences between Molly and Cynthia (Cynthia is described as a great beauty, so much so that her own mother does not want her at her wedding to Dr. Gibson for fear that Cynthia will attract attention that should be given to Hyacinth) but the emotional, ethical, and moral differences as well. In some ways, Molly is almost too good to be true--she constantly puts others and their desires before her own, even when she recognizes that it is spite or jealously that drives their actions. This is best shown by the scenes between Molly and her stepmother, Hyacinth. Hyacinth thinks only of Hyacinth, schemes to place herself between Molly and her father, and resents their relationship. Hyacinth constantly says how kind, thoughtful and sensitive she is, yet she redecorates Molly's room, bans cheese from the kitchen (one of Dr. Gibson's favorite foods) without consulting Dr. Gibson and Molly, and tries to forbid Molly from doing anything that gives her (Molly) pleasure.
Molly becomes the confidante and keeper of secrets of Osborne Hamley and Cynthia, and she acts to help Cynthia out of one of her scrapes, much to the detriment of her own character. Cynthia typically does not give a thought to how this will affect Molly's character, so long as the secret is kept and the problem taken care of.
This is a lovely, faithful adaptation of Mrs. Gaskell's novel of life in a small English town in the 1820s--before railroads crisscrossed the country, before Victoria came to the throne (she was crowned in 1837), when life moved at a slower pace, yet full of social commentary, illustrating well the changes of acceptable behavior from the 18th century and Regency to the newer sensibilities of the 19th century. Justine Waddell does a wonderful job as Molly, conveying her every emotion and thought so well that she does not need to speak for viewers to understand her. Francesca Annis and Keely Hawes match Justine Waddell as Hyacinth and Cynthia (best love-to-hate characters that I have seen in a long time), and the rest of the cast does well to make the story and characters believable.
Mrs Gaskell died prior to completing the novel, and her publisher took the liberty to finish it for her. The BBC also finished the series with the publisher's ending most satisfactorily! After many twists, turns, and secrets, the right guy (Roger Hamley, Osborne's brother) comes to his senses, after being tempted by Cynthia's beauty but finally realizing just how shallow she truly is, and ends up with the heroine--Molly! All of Hyacinth's schemes are thwarted, and happy endings abound for nearly everyone. Highly and warmly recommended.
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Summary: Classic Victorian Soap Opera
Review: Even though "Wives and Daughters" is a typically fabulous BBC period piece, it feels like a guilty pleasure. It's chock-full of romantic intrique, not to mention lots of outrageous costumes - the hats deserve special notice here. Not only is the art direction dead-on, but the acting is also uniformly excellent. But don't think this is serious high-brow fare. This is the type of DVD that is best watched sitting in your jammies and eating brownies with your best girl friend.
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