Rating: 
Summary: Excellent adaptation, excellent acting.
Review: I have now viewed this film about 5 times. Everytime I view it I am more and more breathless at the wonderful camera work, acting, and general story. "Hercule Poirot" David Suchet is just wonderful, I think he is one of the great actors of our time. The way the story ends makes you feel good, yet also makes you THINK. Which is wonderful!!
Rating:
Summary: I like it!
Review: I just finished watching the series on OPB. I am a 30 years old male who love to watch quality movies. This is definately one of my favorite!
Rating: 
Summary: How can you have such good actors and end up so wooden?
Review: I like Trollope, I especially like "The Way We Live Now" and of course I love David Suchet's acting (I remember his "Shylock contest" with Patrick Stewart, each doing the same few scenes from "The Merchant of Venice" for the BBC: Suchet absolutely creamed Stewart in double-edge subtlety.) So how come this TWWLN is SO wooden? Bad writing of the adaptation and plodding direction are to blame. The story is so simplified as to bear no resemblance to either the book or simple character verisimilitude. Trollope's women, so realistic, are cliché here. (Trollope, whose writer mother Fanny travelled the world and earned enough to support her family, was a far batter writer of complex female characters than Dickens.) Suchet does what he can with bits of scenes, but his Melmotte is really a synopsis rather than a full-fledged part. The young people all play to type: the He-Done-Her-Wrong type, the Wastrel type, the Cruelly-Deceived-Upper-Class-Girl, etc. etc. This is NOT what good TV drama should be about: it's patronising, and flat.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and intriguing
Review: I watched this production over the four weeks it was shown on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre. It was so captivating that I looked forward to each segment with equal anticipation. Written as a treatise on greed, it focuses on Augustus Melmotte, an appalling man who gets what he deserves in the end. Other characters were interesting, too, like the dilemma of young Paul Montague's engagement to an unappealing American woman who killed her first husband. Sir Felix's antics were humorous, though sometimes downright cruel (his false pledge of love to Marie Melmotte, the daughter of the aforementioned Augustus). Overall, quite an entertaining bit of period drama.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie, Wonderful Movie, Fantastic Movie!!!
Review: I've been watching the series on PBS, and it is just simply wonderful! I have a fondness for films set in this era, but other than my bias, i really enjoyed this film. And, no, im not some older woman, im 21, and i still liked it very much, even though i am a bit desensitized from growing up in front of the television. So, YES i would recommend this film!!!
Rating:
Summary: Have read the novel
Review: Overall this film does a good job with the novel. I do wish it had given the full ending (the novel tells what happens to Madame and Marie Melmotte, and the film doesn't). I do think the film is over-dramatised, with too much shouting and too much sex. The often loud modern background music is distracting at times, particularly when it gets into woo-woo-woo wordless female vocals. The characters are all played very well with the exception of Marie Melmotte. The actress uses a coy, childlike female voice reminiscent of some 1920s female comic singers. Also, I think the film misinterprets Marie's character. In the book she was lonely; ignored by her stepmother, used by her father to further his ambitions regardless of her wishes--even beaten by him--and despised by society, who only valued her father's money. Marie was also naive, ready to believe Felix's avows of love because no one else made any (her other suitors are too gentlemanly to lie as extravagantly as Felix). And, none of the Melmottes were entirely conversant with the habits of upper-class British society. However, in the film Marie is also portrayed as so (...) that she siezes every opportunity to kiss and fondle Felix, even publicly dragging him behind doors at parties and stroking his thighs in front of numerous dinner guests. This is simply not Anthony Trollope. Also, I'd expect Marie might get confused about which fork to use, but not to tear at her food like a savage. However, I'm going to keep this film in my collection--and remember it next time I'm tempted to buy high-tech stock.
Rating:
Summary: That Moutet woman
Review: She watches all the BBC videos in Clermont-Ferrand or Limoges or wherever... I checked out her other reviews and there is a thread of a primitive feminism, strange interest in contemporary affairs expressed as "Bush Dynasty" and a pointed remark "I am reading (or watching) all this {stuff reviewed} in France. Well, friends, I have news for Mmselle Moutet : Her compatriots don't give a damn about their own heritage, yeah, they have some DVDs of Louis de Funes, Jacques Tati etal, but where are the Cayattes, Autant-Laras, Delannoys, Clouzots, huh ?? Where are the inspired and enlightened film or DVD interpretations of Zola, Nizan, Celine and countless others. Oh, yes, Mme.Bovary rules, for obvious reasons. So she will judge "The Way We Live Now" from the benighted distance of Vichy...
The closest I can come to praise the French heritage preservation is the Claude Lelouch's astounding "Les Miserables", it was a flop in France, (nobody reads Victor Hugo any more and is willing to accept an extrapolation of his novel).
The richness of Mmlle. Moutet culture is indubitable, but she fails to observe it but rather she choses to critique the Anglo-Saxon stuff. I wonder why .. This Trollop film version is as good as could be, as the requirements of a filmic interpretation are different from the original purely literary (verbal) content - and - yes, most of us read the novel at least once and can well imagine the quandaries of the transfer to an audio-visual medium. But the point is : What is bugging the French ?? You know, I am fluent in French language, and when in France, I delight in confronting all the nasty little Parisians in their very idiom. But I wouldn't go on Amazon.fr and review a vacuous piece of self professed non-fiction, which in fact is a fiction for most part. I could easily get these clues from "Neue Zuricher Zeitung", "The Economist", and even the "Christian Science Monitor" or "Der Spiegel". Trust the BBC not for their news, but for the recent renewal of their interest in the English heritage.
Rating:
Summary: A Compliment... with a Caveat-
Review: The amazing David Suchet! I have read this novel twice, and never dreamed that anyone could fully, authentically play Melmotte, but after seeing a clip, I purchased this video. The actors are so perfectly cast, it is a delight to novel lovers and an inspiration to other filmmakers. It is a cast willing to open as wide as Trollope's vision. While admiring the spectacularly beautiful and talented Mr. Cillian Murphy, I must mention Shirley Henderson, who, next to Suchet, creates a character as difficult, wide-ranging, individual and authentic as one could imagine. There are a few differences in the spirit of the book and the TV show: the book is satire, while the show is drama. Melmotte's decline, as written, is gradual, is more dramatic and less melodramatic than on screen, beginning with the Emperor's dinner party, which is a filmed as a truimph, but written as a disaster and the beginning of his fall. I want to mention two important "compromises" to TV culture. I don't think these are "Spoilers", but use your judgement. First of all, Paul Montague did not sleep with Mrs. Hurtle. A man of his character would never have done such a thing. Secondly, Ruby Ruggles was not sleeping with Felix Carbury. It's very clear in the novel that she is naive and a "good girl". Another "Spoiler"? I don't think so. I hope you'll read the novel, as in the book, many more people pair off and get married than are shown on screen. I'm amazed at how many of the reviews here say "I've read the book twice". Not a compliment often extended to modern novels! If you can't face a read this long, rent it (unabridged!) on audio tape; it's a great experience. Trollope has created a world, and the BBC, given only four hours, has done a fantastic job in illuminating this often overlooked classic.
Rating:
Summary: Posh Society...or is it?
Review: This DVD produced by non other than the BBC sticks fairly close to the book it was adapted from by Anthony Trollope. The cast was remarkable and the sets and costumes were all lavish indeed. Short version of plot: Lady Carbury wants nothing more than to sustain her good name and in doing so, tries in vain to get her wayward son Felix , who is a cad if ever there was, to find a decent and, more importantly wealthy girl to marry. Should that plot fail, her daughter is available for the right price so to speak. There are too many sub-plots to this that are intriguing and although seemingly complicated, not hard to follow. Overall, it was a fine adaptation although, not as finely detailed as the book . If you read the book you may find some of the casting decisions to be a bit quizzical. It is a bit on the pricey side, so unless you are an Anthony Trollope fan, just rent it. I am not so sure that I will watch this again, although I have read the book twice. Cheers!
Rating:
Summary: Very faithful spirited adaptation
Review: This series is an amazing adaptation of Trollope's novel, yet at the same time speaks to a contemporary audience - the bubble stock scam, investors' greed and gullibility and the extreme corporate coruption, coupled with unreal ambition are maybe a little too typical of much we have seen in recent years. The last episode is the weakest and the ending seems almost perfunctory, but all in all, a highly enjoyable series.
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