i'll be the first to admit it . when you mention the book great expectations , i immediately begin experiencing flashbacks to junior high english class , where i was confronted with a torturously boring book filled with people with such nonsensical names as pip and magwitch . yes , it's a classic of literature , but it was a rather dry one , shoved down my young throat like a spoonful of bitter medicine . certainly , the experience wasn't truly that bad , but , to quote ethan hawke in the latest movie adaptation of said book , " i'm not going to tell the story the way it happened . . . i'll gonna tell it the way i remember it . " anyway , to return from nostalgia lane , and get back to the present , hollywood , in it's trendy attempt to modernize the classics , now presents an updated film version of great expectations . instead of pip , this time the central character is named finn ( played as a boy by jeremy kissner , and by ethan hawke as an adult ) . finn is an orphan being raised by his unfaithful sister maggie , or should that be mrs . joe , ( kim dickens ) , and her boorish fisherman husband , joe ( chris cooper ) . the setting is the florida coast during the mid-70s . finn is a blooming artist , and spends his time running around the beach drawing fish ( one of his two favorite subjects ) . during one of these escapades , he literally stumbles upon an escaped criminal ( robert deniro ) . borrowing a page from the superhuman max cady , deniro's criminal has a seemingly limitless lung capacity , and favors hiding on the ocean floor . ok . . . maybe that's an exaggeration , but he certainly beats any of houdini's records in the opening scenes of the film . and that's nothing next to the fuel efficiency of finn's motorboat , but i digress . anyway , finn does the convict a good deed , just to show that he's a really swell guy . and then the plot moves on . enter miss havisham . . . or ms . dinsmoor here ( anne bancroft ) . abandoned at the altar some 26 years ago , ms . dinsmoor is the epitome of the crazy rich old maid . with bizarre clothing , eccentric mannerisms and a few pounds of makeup , anne bancroft seriously overacts in this role . although she ends up nowhere near a believable character , she does add some humor to the film . joe is hired to help with the gardening at her unkempt manner , but the insane ms . dinsmoor soon hires finn to be a plaything for her niece , estella ( raquel beaudene as a young girl , gwyneth paltrow as an adult ) . for no apparent reason , other than to provide the main plot of the film , finn is instantly stricken for the estella . perhaps it's her snooty attitude or her utter disdain for his person , or maybe finn has simply never met a girl before . in any case , neither as children nor adults , chemistry simply doesn't exist between the two , and yet finn spends the remainder of the film pining for her . even when , as an adult , finn arrives in new york at the behest of a mysterious benefactor , reacquaints himself with estella , and draws her portrait in the nude , there's nothing . in fact , there is more sexual tension between helen hunt and greg kinnear's gay artist during a similar scene in as good as it gets . at this point , the audience has grown as cold and detached as estella's character , and couldn't care less about the two characters . the bulk of the blame here falls upon gwyneth paltrow . she fails to imbue estella , a remote character in the book , with even the vaguest traces of humanity . there's obviously something wrong when , watching the film , you're more interested with how big her nose looks in silhouette than you are about her character . without a strong estella , finn's obsession seems baseless . you wish he would just stop whining , let estella marry his rival , walter plane ( an oddly subdued hank azaria ) , and just get on with his life . in fact , the two relationships that work in the film are purely tangential to the main plot . finn's relationship with his brother-in-law , joe , is interesting , if a bit stereotypical . what's more fascinating are his interactions with deniro . although it's only a bit part , it goes to show how much vitality a strong actor can create . it is apparent that director alfonso cuarsn put a lot of work in creating the imagery of the film . some of the shots work , but others are too obviously staged ( for example , both of the water fountain scenes ) to have any impact . finn's art ( actually the creations of italian painter , francesco clemente ) is used throughout the film , but it mostly fails to have the intended effect . we never see why finn would generate this style of art , which is simultaneously crude and insightful . as a result , it ends up as distant as the rest of the film . modernizing the classics is currently in vogue ( just see william shakespeare's romeo+juliet ) . simply update the action to a modern setting , and apply plenty of modern rock . but such adornments do little to perk up great expectations . as much as i dreaded the novel when i first read it , you'd probably be better off suffering though a reading than watching this romanceless film .
