Two-Part Television Film | Mystery | UK/USA | English | 1h58m
Dir: Diarmuid Lawrence | Scr: Gwyneth Hughes | Novel: Charles Dickens | Ph: Alan Almond | Prod: Lisa Osborne | Mus: John Lunn | Ed: David Head | PD: Melanie Allen | AD: James Price | Cast: Matthew Rhys, Rory Kinnear, Freddie Fox, Tamzin Merchant, Sacha Dhawan, Amber Rose Revah, Alun Armstrong, Julia McKenzie, David Dawson, Ron Cook, Ian McNeice, Janet Dale, Ellie Haddington, Alfie Davis
When his nephew (Fox) mysteriously disappears, an opium-addicted choir master (Rhys), whose coveting of the young man’s 17-year-old fiancée (Merchant) has resulted in drug-fuelled murderous fantasies, fails to remember if he has actually carried out the deadly deed, but is quick to point the finger of blame at a short-tempered Indian man (Dhawan) anyway, in Hughes’s speculative adaptation of Dickens’s unfinished novel. Decent performances and handsome production values grab the attention, but overly quick pacing and implausible plotting detract somewhat. Diverting, never the less.
