![]() ![]() Starz Orders 'The White Queen' Follow-Up 'The Spanish Princess' “You don’t want to be apologizing for a book that was written in 1910, nor do you want to be writing material whose main purpose is to tell the audience that you don’t agree with these views,” Lonergan told The Times of London, addressing the challenges. The effort was in taking dated ideas about the sexes (above and beyond the larger issue of class that fuels the book, and some key British elements of property inheritance that are central to the plot) and making the intellectual curiosity and strong sense of social justice within the Schlegel sisters stand out. He truly succeeds in that respect - again, deft casting and superb performances certainly helped, particularly because the gap between Atwell and Macfadyen, eight years in real life, doesn’t read visually as so far apart.įorster’s 1910 story remains the same and Lonergan has said he felt comfortable creating believable new dialogue while using the bulk of the novelist’s work as the backbone. Lonergan is said to have insisted on no less than four hours to tell the story, perhaps because he felt it necessary to make some of the relationships more believable and naturally developing than in the film, which was half as long. That aspect is helped by Matthew Macfadyen deftly making his Henry Wilcox character staunchly opinionated but not a force that can’t be moved or verbally neutered, a very subtle shading that was wise given how Atwell and Coulthard are clearly the beating heart of this retelling. They are wonderfully engaging and more fiercely independent in their views, forcibly refusing to stay in the shadows. Forster’s novel and competes in memory with the Oscar-winning Merchant Ivory film from 1992.Īnd while there are more than a few nods in this new adaptation to be more inclusive of race (more on that later), it succeeds in feeling more “modern” primarily thanks to two outstanding performances by Hayley Atwell and Philippa Coulthard as Margaret and Helen Schlegel, a winning duo who shine from start to finish. That’s precisely what writer Kenneth Lonergan ( Manchester by the Sea) and director Hettie Macdonald ( Hit & Miss, Beautiful Thing) have done with Howards End, the Starz and BBC limited series that explores E.M. ![]() So maybe the more challenging route is take a revered favorite and just make it as great as you possibly can, not letting fear of scrutiny get in the way. ![]() But the boldness in extreme departures also allows protection from comparisons. You could make a convincing argument that the best remakes, particularly of classics, are those that reimagine the material more than merely remaking it. ![]()
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