CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

TheLittleSongbird If you love George Eliot's writing you'll love Mill on the Floss as a book, because it has everything characteristic of what makes her books so pleasurable to read. Because the characters and situations are so complex, her books are not easy to adapt at all and, despite being the book with the most adaptations, Mill on the Floss is not an exception to this. Of the two versions I've seen, this and the 1978 version both are worth the look but neither do the story justice completely. It's difficult to tell which is better between the two because they have similar flaws and strengths, but as 1978's resonated more emotionally that gets the edge. There are a great many things that are good about this adaptation. It looks absolutely beautiful, the scenery is like looking at a postcard come to life, the production values are evocative and fit very well with the nature of the story and the beginning in particular is strikingly shot. Additionally the music has a genuine swelling richness that accompanies what's happening unobtrusively yet with presence, it's also unmistakably romantic. The ending is very divisive it seems, a lot are understandably going to feel short-changed(if I remember correctly some dislike the ending of the book too), it was very shocking and heart-rending to me. On the most part it is very well-acted, Emily Watson is exceptional, the spirit and delicacy are all here and she makes an effort to explore Maggie's complexity despite the writing not matching her. Bernard Hill and Cheryl Campbell are fine as the parents and James Frain allows you for feel repulsion and pity for Phillip Wakam without manipulation. The adaptation is faithful to the book and it was a good move to excise some of Eliot's musing and moralising, which would have been patronising to some.Not all the performances work, Ifan Meredith is rather dull and wooden as Tom which makes his and Watson's chemistry not as convincing as it should(the 1978 adaptation does it much better). Stephen Guest's annoying traits- that he's shallow and conceited- are amplified to extremities in James Weber Brown's performance that if you were there in person you wouldn't stand to be in the same room as him. The satirical characters are so bland that they're practically out of sight as well. The pacing and that there is little meat to the story and characterisations are the biggest problems. The adaptation is too short in the first place, which immediately does dilute the emotion and complexity, but it also manages to be both rushed and dull. Dull because whereas Eliot's writing is of the flesh and blood kind it is reduced to in some parts one-dimensional stereotyping(especially Stephen) and Maggie and Tom and their relationship are present but with no real substance. And rushed because the details are all there but a lot of it feels very jumpy and skimmed over that there is often not enough emotional connection. Situations happen but too often it is so skimming-the-surface quality that they are just there for the sake of being there with no proper reason or reflection. The scripting has moments where it provokes thought and shows evidence of Eliot's style but it is at the same time too cultivated and could have done with more flow. Overall, has good things but also things that could have been done better, with a longer length it would have been more engaging and powerful I feel. 6/10 Bethany Cox

broadwaylady-1 It's too bad that the way this is set up it forces you to give any stars at all. This was not even a "b" flick; it sucked, plain and simple. This comes from a person who loves every movie, and has a special place in her heart for 'The Last Unicorn' (not that I would ever admit it publicly.) My main point in saying that is this: although I don't have very discriminating taste when it comes to movies, and I am more than easily entertained, this movie made me feel as though I'd actually wasted my time and energy even putting it in the VCR. For days afterward I felt as though I had never finished it because the beginning had promise, but the middle to the end was phenomenally bad. You have been fairly forewarned... stay as far away from this movie as is physically and reasonably possible.

notmicro Its kind of like walking on a sandy beach, and finding a partially-buried skeleton of some animal. Some of the jumbled bones are sticking up here and there, but there's no meat on them. The book requires a much longer mini-series to do it any justice. Most of the action will be completely incomprehensible to anyone without a general understanding of the social history of the time. The production wastes an amazing amount of time on arty underwater shots.

stills-6 Great locations, beautiful shots, good if not impressive acting (except for the exceptional Watson). The only thing this movie suffers from is the story itself. The script necessarily pares down the story to its essence - but a good deal is lost in the translation. George Eliot's intelligence has been all but wrung out in favor of a questionable love story between Maggie and her brother Tom.This is the kind of production that takes the points of the plot and hits you with them scene by scene - bang bang bang. At the beginning, we are promised a truly artistic treatment with shots of the mill itself and the beautiful English countryside. But by the end we are bombarded with events without reflection and character motivations that are baffling. It's like watching someone write a sentence out on lined paper - realizing that there won't be room to fit it all on one line, the letters get smashed together towards the end so there is no punctuation, no style, and no white space at all.