Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9139 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-04-24
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1

Synopsis
Starring Sarah Smart (At Home with the Braithwaites), Joseph McFadden (The Crow Road, Small Faces), Alun Armstrong and Celia Imrie, Sparkhouse is a love story that works heartfelt romance with humour and pain into a tale as powerful and turbulent as a modern-day Wuthering Heights. Carol and Andrew have been in love since school. When Andrew prepares to go to university, his parents are relieved that he will be out of the clutches of reckless, volatile Carol, whose world is slowly beginning to fall apart. The secrets that have been buried among the chaos of her family home at Sparkhouse farm are working their way into the open.

Customer Reviews

Superb, compelling drama
This modern re-working of Wuthering Heights was first broadcast by the BBC in 2002 and was one of the most popular and well-regarded dramas of the year. In this version, Cathy and Heathcliff are Andrew (Joe McFadden)and Carol (Sarah Smart) respectively. Inseparable as children, they are now, at 18, passionately in love. The drama follows their story over the next few years. Andrew is the son of middle-class parents, whereas Carol, who lives across the valley at Sparkhouse Farm, is the daughter of a violent father and heavy-drinking mother. Andrew's parents disapprove of Carol, and try to prevent their son from seeing her. Like their counterparts in the novel, Andrew and Carol have an almost unearthly connection to each other, but events conspire against them.

There are intriguing echoes of Wuthering Heights, both major and minor, but the drama is not a retelling of the novel in a modern setting - it stands on its own, compelling and ultimately haunting. It's set and filmed in and around Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, and seems very much rooted in the area. The heart of the drama is Sarah Smart's superbly-played Carol, a flawed but feisty young woman fighting against the disadvantages of her background.

The impetus for releasing this drama on DVD now is mostly the presence in the cast of Richard Armitage, who so memorably played John Thornton in the BBC's North and South in 2004. Here he plays John Standring, a cripplingly shy farm-worker at Sparkhouse, who, in his own hesitant way, is in love with Carol. It's a very different character from Thornton, but is played just as effectively.

Also in a strong cast are Alun Armstrong, Nicholas Farrell and Celia Imrie. This is much more than just a drama inspired by Wuthering Heights, and I'd thoroughly recommend it whether you know the novel or not.

Not for the faint hearted
This film has a lot to commend it - most obviously the strong performances and compelling story line. Although not a direct adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, the film is highly successful in preserving the sense of place (the Yorkshire Moors as metaphor) integral to the original story as well as the intricate, and at times claustrophobic, social relationships between two families that provides the vehicle for Bronte's plot line. The gritty realism of the film (including domestic abuse) reflects the fragile class relationships in modern England no less than Bronte's original did those of early Victorian England. Indeed, the almost inviolable divide between classes (which, transgressed, invites destruction) captured in Sparkhouse is biting social commentary at its best. The film is excellent. That said, it is not for the faint hearted. Dark, twisted, haunting, and tragic, this tale of obsessive love is disturbing and, at times, chilling. It is for this reason that my wife might give this film 3 Stars as opposed to my 5 Stars.

An outstanding mini-series.
I bought "Sparkhouse" on the basis of reviews only, as I had never seen it here in Australia. This is completely worth its 5 star rating - it was not entirely what I expected, but I was riveted to this dark and violent tale of love and obsession. The parallels to "Wuthering heights" are obvious but not overplayed, and the entire cast is incredibly good. Brilliant!