Dombey and Son [1983] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Customer Reviews:

Very good Dickens adaptation.......2007-08-28

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I saw this adaptation when it first came out and was impressed by the story (which I hadn't read up to then but it's now one of my favourite Dickens) and the acting and general quality of adaptation. This is excellent viewing in the typical Beeb Classic Series style, ten half-hour episodes covering the story well.

Dombey is the typical harsh Victorian martinet who's incapable of showing any emotion except towards his son and heir. Running a successful City business, he's rich and used to having his own way, considering the head of the household must be obeyed at all times at all costs without argument. His wife dies in childbirth leaving him with two children, a nice girl he regards as a useless nuisance and the longed-for son and heir. Unfortunately the boy is sickly and his death a few years later causes various problems. Later, Dombey is foolish enough to get in with some fortune-seekers and is foolish enough to marry a woman who obviously loathes him, but he isn't bothered about that - he wants her and buys her and she should get on with it. However, she's not conscienceless and she rebels after he drives her too far with his gripes against her including her attempt to give some affection to his neglected daughter and his attempt to control her by involving his Office Manager as go-between in their arguments!

Other characters who interact with the leads are delightful Cap'n Cuttle, his friend Sol and Sol's nephew Walter who works for Dombey and falls for Dombey's daughter but is sent off by Dombey to the West Indies office (of course the ship sinks), also Mr Toots who had befriended little Paul years before, and dear Miss Tox who adores Dombey uselessly from afar. There's also a respectable but poor family which includes Biler and his mother "Richards" who nurses young Paul.

My favourite characters in the TV version as in the book are the slimy, nasty, creepy Mr Carker, Dombey's Office Manager, and his young henchman Biler who is the spitting image of Mick Jagger.

Carker is a completely over the top character in the novel - hard to take seriously that anyone could be quite so awful as the Dickens' description. I was very impressed with how Paul Darrow humanises him, avoiding the novel's worst excesses regarding this character and showing him as capable of emotions even if so self-centred and at times vicious. It's Carker who manages Dombey's business to his own advantage when Dombey is absent grieving over his son and later 2nd-wife-chasing with a very unsuitable companion who's out to trick him. Clever though Dombey is with money (so it seems), he's easily enough gulled into this marriage and neglecting his business. Carker falls for the new wife and eventually they run off together with his ill-gotten gains when she's had enough of Dombey's harsh ways. Sadly, as Mr Darrow is so attractive even as this none-too-nice Mr Carker, the wife doesn't like him either and quickly abandons him. Mr Carker's end inadvertently falling under a train is as unconvincing on screen as in the book although Paul Darrow does his best with it.

Of course Dombey eventually repents his cruel ways when he's gone as low as he can, in penury and abandoned by all others except Miss Tox and his daughter, happily reunited with her admirer and turning up to comfort her father.

Customer Reviews:

A quiet delight.......2007-12-31

As the synopsis suggests, and as the previous reviewer comments, this is a small, quiet film about the emotional struggles of the teenagers involved. The main focus is on the girl who is the messenger and the boy who is the object of her friend's affection. It is the interaction between the messenger and the boy that is the crux of the movie and both actors, whilst necessarily depicting teen struggle in somewhat monosyllabbic language, are a delight. They create a wonderfully rich relationship that struggles, and fails, to develop beyond the limits of their fragile world.
Beautifully shot, quietly acted - it is an interesting and important addition to Asian cinema.

Hard going teenage angst.......2007-10-24

I read the box and reviews of this movie before I watched it and couldn't wait to get it in the DVD player - however, what I read didn't seem to bear any resemblance to what I watched. The move is very slow and, because the cast are teenagers, the dialogue fairly mono-syllabic. Nothing really happens and you don't really get any sense of the characters throughout. I really couldn't recommend it.

UK DVD:

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