Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2867 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-03-13
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 117 minutes

Synopsis
George Eliot's classic tale of love, rejection and reconciliation in which Maggie Tulliver is a rare free spirit in Victorian society who has to look outside the love of her own family to find the companionship and life she craves.

Customer Reviews

Still waiting for a good version of Mill on the Floss

The Mill on the Floss has to be my favourite book, and possibly for this reason I have high expectations of any adaptation. The earlier BBC Sunday teatime version was poor with Mrs Tulliver's sisters more suited to pantomime. In this latest version the humour was lost altogether. Worse still the smartly dressed Mr Tulliver, sounds as though he had had 'the good eddication' he wanted for his son. Add to this the silly opening sequence and I would recommend anyone to wait for an Andrew Davies adaptation. I spoke to him recently on this subject & he indicated an interest.

Actors are let down by lamentable directing
What is so infuriating about this film is that I know Emily Watson is a capable actress, and I've always admired Bernard Hill. But both sink deep deep down into the abyss of mediocrity as the film progresses, debilitated by a director who apparently slept through the lectures on 'blocking' at film school, and doodled over his notes on speech. The dialogue here is so stilted, and the dialect so inconsistent, that it is difficult to believe it is being performed by a professional cast.

In the novel one of the most essential features of Maggie, the protagonist, is her wild, dark beauty - the catalyst for her suitors' love, and thus (along with Mr. Tulliver's 'pigheadedness') the greatest cause of tragedy in the novel. However I refuse to believe, whatever her acting capacities may be (not exhibited in this film), that Emily Watson's looks would lure a handsome man like Stephen (dismal actor), even if Philip's attraction to her is not altogether incredible. Worst of all is the fact that her eyes are blue, despite the fact that almost every time she describes Maggie, Eliot stresses the beguiling blackness of her eyes...

The plot is a thoroughly weeded down version of that of the novel, and contains several minor changes, which will jar in the mind of a purist, but doubtless pass by unnoticed to those unfamiliar with the novel. However it is essential in a film translation of Mill on the Floss, perhaps more than for any other Eliot novel, to portray in depth the psyche of the characters and the events that alter their lives, since without all this, the eminently depressing ending comes across as a grandiose and sentimental finale to an insubstantial story. Such is the case with this production.

My advice would be to spend your money instead on Polanski's magnificent production of Tess of the D'Urbevilles, a simillar, but considerably more profound and moving tale.

decent, workaday, enjoyable ; not outstanding
This is an enjoyable version of George Eliot's warm-hearted and melancholy novel. Visually it's good, with a lovely Dorlecote Mill and pleasant English rural scenes. Emily Watson is well cast as Maggie, Bernard Hill as her father, and all other characters are competently rendered. There is a very good visual likeness between the actors who play Maggie, Tom and Philip as children and their adult counterparts. The music is very appropriate - English, rural, yearning. But for all that, it never really seems to get off the ground. I don't really know why this is, because it is never bad, but it never seems to be really good either. Anyway, I enjoyed it, it held my interest, but I cannot give it a strong recommendation.