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| Fingersmith |
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List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $18.34
You Save: $11.65 (39%)
Buy New/Used from $18.34
Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 19 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1405
Category: DVD
Actors: Stephanie Middleton, David Troughton, Imelda Staunton, Karen Seacombe, Tallulah Pitt-brown, Anna Jordan (iii), Anna Mottram, Charles Dance, Polly Hemingway, Elaine Cassidy, Sally Hawkins, Bronson Webb, Demelza Randall, Rupert Evans (ii), Stephen Wight (ii), Richard Durden, Nick Lucas (iii), Laura Dos Santos, Wendy Morgan, Tim Preece
Director: Aisling Walsh
Publisher: Acorn Media
Studio: Acorn Media
Manufacturer: Acorn Media
Label: Acorn Media
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 180 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 1569387907
UPC: 054961790791
EAN: 0054961790791
ASIN: B000A4T804
Release Date: September 13, 2005
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
From Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet, comes this twisting and twisted Victorian-era thriller with an L-word charge. Sally Hawkins stars as Sue, an orphan who grows up among the reprobates of Lant Street to become an accomplished "fingersmith" (thief). Elaine Cassidy costars as Maud Lilly, an heiress who, as a young girl, was plucked from the madhouse and raised by her stern, bibliophile uncle (Charles Dance). He makes her wear gloves at all times so as not to smudge the precious tomes he makes her read every night. Enter Richard Rivers (Rupert Evans, the otherwise sterling cast's weakest link), an artist hired to give her painting lessons. But he has designs on Maude's fortune, and recruits Sue for an elaborate con. That's when the gloves really come off. Originally broadcast on the BBC, this riveting three-part tale of illicit passion and betaryal is by turns harrowing and quite erotic (the tasteful sex scenes manage to generate heat without baring a lot of skin). The literate script reveals its feminist leanings ("You are a man and might do everything," Maude tells Richard during their first meeting. "I am a woman and might do nothing."). The superb cast includes Academy Award-nominee Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) as Mrs. Sucksby, a Fagin-esque character who mentored Sue, and has a few surprises for Maud, as well. --Donald Liebenson
Description
Based on the acclaimed novel by Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet.
The lives of two young women collide in an engrossing Victorian thriller that alternates between the twisting back alleyways of Dickensian London and the cloistered gloom of a Gothic mansion.
Raised in a den of petty thieves or "fingersmiths," plucky orphan Sue Trinder (Sally Hawkins) agrees to help a conman known as Gentleman (Rupert Evans) defraud and betray wealthy heiress Maud Lilly (Elaine Cassidy). But Sue's plans are turned upside down when she falls in love with Maud. Then the women are separatedeach to her own hellish prisonjust as they realize the strength of their passion for each other . . .
Fingersmith was originally broadcast on the BBC and features Oscar-nominee and BAFTA-winner Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) and BAFTA-nominee Charles Dance (The Jewel in the Crown).
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Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 As always, good until you read the book June 22, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
So, I really loved the book, Fingersmith, which my partner hadn't read when we picked up this movie. Obviously, Sarah Waters was going through more than some "rough seas" when she wrote the book, and as such, it's hard to capture that raw emotion on film. My partner absolutely loved the movie, and watched it 3 times over. She is also the kind of person who will not watch a L&O episode over again, 'cause she hates repeats, but she loved this movie. I can see the appeal, but since I read the book first, I just wasn't as... satisfied with the movie. I highly recommend it as a stand-alone, though. Les movies these days are so cliche, and it's nice to have a breath of fresh air. I just also recommend reading the book... after you've had your fill of the movie.
Fingersmith March 25, 2006
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
Entertaining & a great story and it kept you guessing right to the very end.
 Maybe It Couldn 't Be Done March 24, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Maybe it's because I loved the book so much, but I was let down by this adaptation. It seemed that the BBC were too timid to do what was nessisary to make the story work.
There are wonderful things about the series. It is obvious that after the success of Tipping the Velvet, the BBC decided to spend more money on their second Sarah Waters adaptation. It is a great looking production. The costumes and sets are top notch. The casting was generally excellent, and the two female leads were flawless choices - exactly right - as was Mrs. Sucksby.
Unfortunately, I thought that the writing and the direction didn't support the great cast and production values. Its greatest overall fault is lack of depth. For all its twisty plot, melodramatic conventions and colorful Victorian background, the original book is primarily a love story between two wonderfully realized, entirely human, fully rounded, women. In the adaptation, the writer and director hurry the story so swiftly along that it doesn't have time to show us this relationship in all its richness, passion and heartbreak, or reveal to us much of the underlying characters of Maud and Sue. Sue in particular seems to have been unexplored. We get very little of her interior life at all.
Also, some important things are left so implied that I would be surprised if viewers who hadn't read the book would understand them. Maud's Uncle's work, for instance, is so glossed over that later scenes are nearly impossible to understand, such as why the bookdealer Mr. Hawtrey won't help her. One also never learns that Sue might have mixed emotions about Maud in the second episode.
I know it must have been very difficult to trim such a twisty, complicated novel down to three hour long episodes, and I couldn't say how it could have been done better, but if it couldn't, then perhaps it shouldn't have been done at all.
The three stars are for Sally Hawkins, Elaine Cassidy, and Imelda Staunton. The greatest heartbreak of this series is realizing what this amazing cast could have done if the story had been better told. What a pearl that would have been.
 Very impressed... March 23, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Normally during a book-to-movie adaptation, elements of the story are lost and I finish being rather disappointed... that did not happen with this mini-series. The beautiful spiderweb of events was woven perfectly on-screen; I found myself laughing and crying as the love story unfolds. The book was wonderful and movie did the book justice. It's fantastic (and coming from me, there is no better compliment!)
Exquisite, compelling, tender, engaging, passionate... March 21, 2006
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Finally, a break out film about love between women. The story is rich and deep, the story twists are brilliantly executed, and the costumes and period takes are flawless. The two actresses are absolutely lovely and completely engaging in a very believable budding first love, with tortured betrayal as an underlying current of intrigue. The love scenes are just exquisite; innocence and passion combine in a breathless buildup. Tastefully filmed with romantic lighting and the warmth of the two young women weaving tenderness into the theme of all of the characters self interest. Finally, a gigantic leap beyond the contrived and typically shallow pieces that aren't a story, but bad acting as an excuse to film women awkwardly having sex when no one believes what they are seeing. You can fill two evenings falling in love with these women in two separate episodes.
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Copyright Runningonkarma.com 2006
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