Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6536 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-10-02
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 300 minutes

Synopsis
Set in the railway boom of the 1870s, The Way We Live Now captures the turmoil as the old order is swept aside by the brash new forces of business and finance. It contains all the elements that made Trollope the most popular novelist of his day - the trials and tribulations of young love, the enduring values of honourable men; but also the raw energy and excitement of the most powerful city the world had ever seen. It is packed with incident - elopement, scandal, suicide, fortunes made and lost, love lost and won.

It is filled with a range of characters that only Trollope could create - the towering figure of Augustus Melmotte, the great financier; Sir Felix Carbury, a young aristocrat so dissolute he would sell his own mother to pay his gambling debts; his cousin Roger, a man of integrity horrified at the way the world he knew is slipping away, in love with Felix's sister Hetta, the engineer Paul Montague; whose life is complicated by a rash engagement to a glamorous American; who, it is rumoured, once shot a man in Oregon and has now followed Paul to England to hold him to his promise...

Customer Reviews

Suchet's Finest Performance Yet?
Anthony Trollope's tail of deception, greed and social climbing may be set in the 1800's but is as pertinent today as then. Augustus Mellmotte is a devil - complete with charm by the bucket, cunning and guile he arrives in London and sets about hosting stunning parties, forming limited companies and clawing his way into the best circles. The aristocracy may not approve of him - but they do approve of his apparant wealth and he has no shortage of backers when he announces his plans to build a railway in Mexico.

But Mellmotte is a fraudster of the highest order and those who look like unmasking him soon see the real man - cold, threatening, bullying. As Mellmotte sets his sights on Parliament his web of deceit begins to unravell and his house of cards looks set to crash down - taking many of the top British families who invested in him with it.

With lavish costumes and a flawless cast, this is a must-see DVD of a great book. If you enjoyed seeing David Suchet's recent portrayal of Robert Maxwell you may well believe that his performance as Mellmotte was instrumental in landing him that role!

It's amusing enough, but ...
It is a mystery to me, why script writers and directors undertake to turn a classic novel into a film, only to start mucking around with the plot once they get going. The sad thing of course is, that Trollope did a much better job at telling the story, then they could ever hope to do. All these modern "improvements" hurt the production. It is quite entertaining though to see the actors suddenly slip into modern vernacular, because the writer did not get the language of the times write. On the downside, I felt David Suchet overacts Melmotte. Shirley Henderson portrays Marie, Melmotte's daughter, as an imbecile. Why she would do that, I can not begin to understand. Overall, it is still watchable (3 stars for that), but if you enjoyed the book do not expect anything much.

Disappointed
Do not read the book before you watch the film. The novel is terrific, but because there had been so many changes made to the plot in this production I was left feeling very dissatisfied and let down. I am sure Anthony Trollope would have found his work unrecognisable in parts.