Have Great Expectations about Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham?

I put Great Expectations on the back burner last year after the film debuted at TIFF 2012, opened in the UK at year's end and then nada here on the western front. Guess what, the film is FINALLY set to open here October 11th.  Here's a good review in The Guardian, (read it but come back) which I posted last year just before the film came out in Ireland on November 30.

Directed by Mike Newell (Atonement) Great Expectation stars Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham, Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch, and Jeremy Irvine as Pip.

Of course the expectations about HBC are the ones that taunt us.
I've been wary about Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham ever since I saw the first pictures of her in full bridal regalia. I just didn't feel she was decrepit enough. Certainly not dusty enough of a brittle antique in comparison to the spinster of  Dicken's novel. Although, by my calculations Havisham was probably somewhere in her late 40's/early 50's anyway so HBC isn't really too young. Except that while "50 is the new 30" nowadays, back then it was "50 is the new 80"! So shouldn't Miss Havisham have a little more of that old lace look about her? Not just her clothing, all that's fine.. more than fine, actually. Costume designer Beatrix Pasztor really excells!  But shouldn't HBC have the lacy age lines and that faded powderiness of an older complexion?  Guess I'll have to wait and see when it comes out here. Please, movie gods, don't let it go direct to DVD!*


UPDATED: 8/18/2013  
The movie gods have been kind; the film is set for theatrical release on October 11th, 2013.









While I enjoyed the book (as I've written here), I also found it tedious and tough going at times. I read Bleak House years ago and loved it so it's not the length. I think it's the age. Mine!  Anyway, I am really hoping, in fact I have Great Expectations, that this particular movie will be better than the book. At least for little old me.