Rating: 
Summary: A VERY painful Experience
Review: I love BBC miniseries, like Pride and Predjustice, Berkeley Square, Wives and Daughters, just to name a few. But this was torture to watch. It is so overly dramatic it's like watching a poor high school play. I didn't care about the characters and the plot (if in fact there had been a plot) was so slow ... so slow and disjointed. If this were going to be a story about the Jews returning to their homeland, I would have loved to see that. If it were going to be a story about British aristocracy, I would have enjoyed that too. I Don't understand how the other reviews for this movie are so high. I would not recommend this to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Fans of the book rejoice
Review: I read Daniel Deronda recently and decided to watch the film to acquaint myself with some of the fuzzier details. I was impressed by the BBC version of George Eliot's book from the word go. Well casted and beautifully filmed this is a lush story of Daniel Deronda, Gwendolen Harleth, and all of the other players in George Eliot's novel of subtle prejudice and self discovery.
I found that the film did in fact crystalize all of the details from the book that I had somehow missed, and for me this was one of those rare cases where I found myself enjoying the film much greater than I had the book. The pacing is different and one or two events are rearranged to heighten the story telling, but I do not believe this hinders the original story. I found myself completely taken in by this superb adaptation and I believe that any of Eliot's admirers, or any period movie fan for that matter, would revel in this wonderful retelling of a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Love the BBC Period dramas!
Review: I saw most of this in the UK where I live but didn't get to see the end of it when I returned to the USA for a wedding. I love the BBC period dramas and this one is particularly interesting as the villain, played by Hugh Bonneville, is particularly nasty considering the actor playing him usually plays sweet, shy characters (he was the not-so-hot stock broker in "Bridget Jones's Diary" - remember??) Possibly an acquired taste, but I have definitely acquired the taste for British period dramas!
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful adaptation of lesser-known novel
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this adaptation of George Eliot's lesser-known novel. The costumes were exquisite, the characters well-cast, and the series remains pretty faithful to the novel. Despite the title, the story is actually about two people, Daniel Deronda, a wealthy, generous, aristocratic young man and Gwendolen Harleth, a beautiful, spoiled, young socialite. Daniel seems to have everything he could want, is a good friend (he is supportive of his friends both emotionally and financially), has the love and support of his "uncle", but yearns to find and learn about his biological family. As well off as he is, he cannot inherit his uncle's property because he is "adopted". His search for his personal history leads to the shocking (for the Victorians) discovery that he is Jewish, and his subsequent decision to give up the life he has known to learn more about his own people and to become a leader of them. Eliot illustrated the changes and growth Daniel faces in how he handles the news of his background.
Gwendolen cannot inherit her father's property because she is female, and, when family fortunes decline, she has a choice of becoming a governess or marrying Henleigh Grandcourt, who represents all of the worst traits in a Victorian gentleman. Her choice, and the consequences of that decision force her to grow and change in unforseen ways.
The series does a great job in communicating Eliot's social commentary, her views on the role of women in marriage, and the role of Jews in England. The actors all did a marvelous job with their characters, although a few found their roles reduced compared to the novel. I particularly liked the leads. Hugh Dancy did an excellent job in his portrayal of Daniel Deronda. It would be too easy to find him almost too good to be true, but instead there is a subtleness to him that kept my interest in his character. I also thought that Romola Garai did equally well with her portrayal of the difficult heroine Gwendolen Harleth. I initially disliked her because she was so spoiled and self-centered, but came to feel sorry for her because no one deserved Henleigh as a husband! Hugh Bonneville did a nice job as the husband-from-hell Henleigh Grandcourt. Henleigh is stone cold, devoid of feelings, and only marries Gwendolen because she is young (only 19), beautiful, and he sees her as a possession (property) and likes the challenge because his goal is to break her spirit.
The only thing that prevents me from rating this series five stars is the way one of the inheritance issues is handled. It is my impression that Sir Hugo Mallinger's estate will go to Henleigh Grandcourt after Sir Hugo's death because Sir Hugo has no male descendents. He has daughters, he has also "adopted" Daniel, but because the estate is a fee tail (also called an entailed estate), none of those people can inherit (daughters because females could not inherit, and Daniel because he was not an "heir of his, i.e. Sir Hugo's, body"). If the property is tied up in a fee tail, then how is it that Henleigh can make his illegitimate son his heir? According to the law, this son cannot inherit the property because Henleigh never married the mother (Mrs. Glasher). Fee tails are not devisable (a will cannot be made to direct the property to a particular person). Was this included for dramatic effect, merely to further illustrate how cruel Henleigh could be?
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful adaptation, beautiful DVD
Review: If you can buy this, do it. Not only is the main cast stunning, but all of the secondary and tertiary characters are 100% "in" their roles. There are no sleepwalkers in this film. Everything is letter-perfect, from dialogue to score, costuming, acting, lighting and editing -- and anything else I've neglected to mention, for that matter.
Also worth noting is the tecehnical quality of the DVD. I've gotten used to frankly rotten digital movies, mostly from the execrable A&E. After seeing the bell-clear mastering of this DVD, I'm convinced that A&E's best option would be to pay the technical team at the Beeb to come over and show them how it should be done. The sound quality is crystal-clear, with lovely depth and immediacy, and the video quality is utterly perfect even at the highest resolution. No grain, no jitter, no nothing. The full warmth and depth of the color palette comes through in every single shot. Definitely worth both your time and money.
Rating:
Summary: George Eliot's prim and proper 19th century soap opera
Review: If you take the elements of a Greek tragedy, turn them into a the standard elements of modern soap opera, and set your story among the privileged class of 19th century England, then you have a pretty good approximately of this BBC adaptation of George Eliot's "Daniel Deronda." Deronda (Hugh Dancy) has been adopted by Sir Hugo Mallinger (Edward Fox), and the question of his parentage is a shoe we keep waiting to drop for most of the three-part story, which is long enough for us to figure out at least one key element of the secret. By that time the question is whether our young hero will end up with Gwendolen Harleth (Romola Garai), or Mirah Lapidoth (Jodhi May), who are as different as day and night. Gwendolen is a spoiled member of the upper class who lords it over the rest of humanity until there is a radical change in her family fortune. Mirah is Jewish and a singer, at a time when both were enough to cast serious aspiration's on a young woman's character, and has lost her family.
Deronda helps out both women in turn, Gwendolen after a rash bet at a gaming table and Mirah when she falls into a river. But there is a fourth member of this particular love triangle in Henleigh Grandcourt (Hugh Bonneville), who has decided that Gwendolen should be his wife. She has affection for Deronda, but Grandcourt has money. However, Grandcourt also has a mistress (Greta Scacchi) who has borne him three children and who extracts a promise from Gwendolen not to marry Grandcourt. Circumstances dictate that Gwendolen has to renege on her promise, otherwise she could marry Daniel and the story would be over. Instead, Gwendolen ends up in a loveless marriage with a predatory husband and begins the first in a series of hard lessons that will force her to repent of the sins of her earlier cavalier life.
Daniel is a compassionate young man, and it is that nature along with a desire to do some greater good with his life's work that propels his actions. In the effort to help Mirah find her lost family, Daniel encounters a young man named Mordecai (Daniel Evans), who insists that he not only knows something about Deronda's past but that he has been chosen to be a leader of his people. At that point you can see the major resolutions of this drama laid out before you and it is simply a question of who will provide the answer to the riddle of Daniel Deronda's life. When you see Barbara Hershey's name in the credits at the start of part three you know she will play that character and have a good guess as to whom that character will be.
As a soap opera goes this is an extreme prim, proper and polite one. Voices are rarely raised, and when they are there is usually an admonishment not to do so. The set design and costumes are meticulously correct, as we expect everything that the BBC send across the pond for "Masterpiece Theater." What we might find unbelievable is that Eliot was making the Zionist dream of a Jewish homeland a major part of a novel that would be published in 1876, but in terms of this production what is lacking is the sense that the hearts of these characters are truly involved. There is no reason to ever think that Gwendolen has any concept of truly loving someone besides herself, Grandcourt is incapable of any passion other than anger, Mirah repeatedly denies what we would think would be an obvious affection for Daniel, and he exhibits no real spark of anything more than friendship for either Gwendolen or Mirah until he finally proposes marriage and if it were the most obvious conclusion to the story's sundry plots.
The performances are as pretty as the sets and the costumes, but
neither the story nor the script illict any truly memorable moments. The most touching is between Daniel and Sir Hugo, which is not where the emotional high point should come. The fact that it does tells you of the level on which "Daniel Deronda" works, or, more to the point, the levels on which it does not.
Rating:
Summary: This is a "Must-See" for Hugh Dancy Fans
Review: My teenaged daughter and I fell under the "spell" of Hugh Dancy while watching "Ella Enchanted." We quickly found DVD's of as many of Dancy's other films as possible and watched them as well. Daniel Deronda was the first of his other films that we viewed mainly because we both love period movies. Anyway, we were amazed at Mr. Dancy's acting ability in this production. When you look at his filmography, he hasn't had many leading roles. He specifically stresses that he chose NOT to go to drama school and studied literature at Oxford instead. Maybe that's the key to his brilliant acting, knowing and understanding the literary character he is portraying. Whether it was his understanding of the novel or not, he manages to convey so much emotion in this production just with his eyes and expressions. The movie was well cast, with the exception of Barbara Hershey as Deronda's mother. She came off as way too American for the role--although she gave my daughter and I quite a laugh with her totally accurate line (said to Deronda), "Wow, you ARE a beautiful creature." The other character I felt was poorly cast was Jodhi May as Mirah. By reading these other reviews, I see that Ms. May has many fans, but my daughter and I both felt cheated that Deronda ends up with Mirah instead of Gwendolyn. We tried to analyze why we felt that way especially as Gwendolyn is not a particularly appealing character, and decided it was because there was absolutely NO chemistry between Ms. May and Hugh Dancy. The chemistry, by contrast, between Deronda and Gwendolyn (Garai) was intense. I try also not to be persuaded by a prettier face (Garai versus May), but in the end, Jodhi May did a decent job with the acting, but she just looked too old and plain to be believeable as someone who could compete with Gwendolyn. Perhaps too the writing or editing of this adaptation of the novel, left out much of the development of a relationship between Deronda and Mirah? It seemed to my daughter and I that out of the "blue" Deronda decides he's in love with the Jewess he rescued and the rest of us watching this were clueless that he felt anything for her except compassion and enjoyment of her singing. I really think that casting someone younger (and with more chemistry with Dancy) in the role of Mirah would have fixed this cheating feeling about the ending that others mention as well in their reviews. Overall, if you "discovered" Hugh Dancy recently, as we have, you really should get this film and watch it. In spite of the casting of Mirah, it really will amaze you that this is the same handsome actor from Ella Enchanted, he seems like two different people. Now that's GOOD acting.
Rating:
Summary: BEAUTIFUL LOVE STORY!!!
Review: The actors portray the characters of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda SO well that one is almost immediately drawn into the story... almost believing that you are watching the lives of real people. And the storyline is poignant and inspiring. I highly recommend this production to anyone who is an incurable romantic and has a fondness for period films. Keep a box of Kleenex handy!
Rating:
Summary: "I shall be better for having known you."
Review: The marvelous BBC mini-series "Daniel Deronda" is based on the George Eliot novel. "Daniel Deronda" is a weighty, problematic novel, and it is not considered to be Eliot's best. The BBC adaptation is excellent, well-paced, and truly elegant. The Victorian, multi-plot novel is far better suited to the series format--there's just too much plot to expect the story to squeeze into a standard 90-120 minute film. If someone tried to squash the novel "Daniel Deronda" into a film, it simply wouldn't work as effectively.The major theme of "Daniel Deronda" is the pursuit of the spiritual versus the pursuit of worldly gain, and this theme is worked through the characters, Gwendolen Harleth and Daniel Deronda. Gwendolen Harleth is the eldest daughter of a impoverished widow, and so the hopes of Gwendolen's mother rest upon the chance--slim, though it is, that penniless Gwendolen will make a good marriage and provide for her younger sisters. Gwendolen's mother and uncle promote Gwendolen in society with the idea that she will make a good match, and in fact they consider her a sort of investment. Gwendolen's horse-riding, for example, is encouraged even though the family cannot afford it, but she is indulged as an ultimate pay-off is expected. As a result, Gwendolen becomes an accomplished horsewoman, excelling at many sports, and outshining all the other girls (including the rich ones). But as the product of indulgence, Gwendolen's sense of self worth is grandiose, and her character suffers as a result--she isn't a particularly good friend, and she isn't a particularly nice person. All of the hopes for an improvement in the Harleth family fortunes seem to bear fruit when Gwendolen catches the eye of the wealthy and arrogant Henleigh Grandcourt. It is with a sort of perverse intensity that Grandcourt drops his interest in a local heiress--Gwendolen is better looking and more accomplished than the heiress--and yet there is something not quite right in Grandcourt's interest. Grandcourt seems to be on his best behaviour when first courting Gwendolen, but it is clear that he is a rather unpleasant fellow. No one likes or respects Grandcourt, but he does have money, prospects and position at his command. There is something quite dark about Grandcourt, and this sense of the unpleasant is not alleviated by the fact that he is always accompanied by his obsequious and equally unpleasant henchman, Lush. Grandcourt desires Gwendolen, but he does not love her. Gwendolen is attracted, at first, to the very unpleasantness of Grandcourt's odd nature, and she prefers him to her other suitors because he isn't as easy to manipulate. She sees him as a challenge and imagines that she will rein him in just as she has controlled other suitors. Daniel Deronda--the main male character--is the very earnest and serious young man who is rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Lord Mallinger. Daniel is the antithesis of Grandcourt, and some rivalry exists between Grandcourt and Deronda as Grandcourt is Mallinger's heir. Daniel meets Gwendolen when she still has the choice of pursuing material gain above all else. Gwendolen recognizes that Daniel is an unusually good and superior man, but at the time, she lacks a true appreciation of his character. Daniel rescues a young Jewish girl, Mirah Lapidoth, and it is through Daniel's acquaintance with Mirah that the truth of Daniel's past is revealed. Mirah is the antithesis of Gwendolen, for Mirah has experienced and endured terrible hardships. Whereas Gwendolen's nature and character accept luxury at any price, Mirah refuses to sell herself for material gain. Mirah's steadfast character and serious nature are in complete contrast to Gwendolen, and so the two main female characters serve as perfect foils for one another. There are several plot twists and turns--this is, after all, based on a Victorian novel, and as such, one must expect co-incidences and parallel storylines. The BBC series is broken up into three sections, but the film flows very smoothly. The acting is all quite superb--although Barbara Hershey is a bit out-of-place in her role of Contessa Maria Alcharisi. The development of the characters is the very best part of both the book and the BBC series. Gwendolen Harleth isn't exactly a shallow person, but due to the nature of her social position and the emphasis placed on the desirability of wealth above all else, she fails to gain any moral perspective about herself, her behaviour, or the choices she eventually makes. Adversity is the making of Gwendolen, and through suffering, she becomes a decent human being. If you enjoy BBC costume dramas, or if you are a fan of Victorian literature or George Eliot (one of my very favourite writers), no doubt you will enjoy this excellent adaptation--displacedhuman
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary Story, Rich Drama, Great Acting!
Review: The story is about searching, searching for true identity, searching for love, and searching for destiny. Charming and sensitive young man Daniel Deronda, who was the adopted son of an aristocratic Englishman, was at the threshold of a new life period when he met the beautiful but self-centered Gwendolen Harleth, and saved the life of a tender and angel-voiced Jewish girl, Mirah. In helping Mirah to find her families, Daniel walked into the Jewish society, astounded and, almost immediately, attached. The story moves in and out of the drama around young beauty Gwendolen gambling her life and Daniel searching for his true life. When the conventional Victorian life and the Jewish living at the margins of the society are combined and contrasted, with exquisite craft, it adds great intensity and range to the drama. The great camera work has captured the grandeurs and subtleties with equal sensitivity. The music, in which the gloriousness of the opera singing echoes the sereneness of the Jewish chanting, is enchantingly beautiful. Hugh Dancy has lived, rather than just acted, Daniel Deronda. He is a fine actor with a deep understanding of the character. He has such vivid expressions in his eyes that you can see Daniel's complexity and perplexity simply through his eyes. Gwendolen would be less truthful if not for the certain level of vulnerability and sincerity in Romala Garai's portrayal, which also has somewhat smoothes out character's vulgarity. Mirah, although not a very big role, has an essential importance to the entire story. Jodhi May's heartfelt and natural acting is exactly what we would expect from this loving character. This BBC miniseries is brilliant in every aspect. It's an exceptional work with a finely balanced artifice and raw drama.
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