Great Expectations 

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Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft

It looks great, with lots of terrific lighting, flocks of birds roosting in turgid waters, pelting rain staining black streets and our heroes and heroines posed in quick fades that accentuate their natural beauties. There's even some terrific drawings in the film, and the music is the best soundtrack fodder of the year.

But all the art and artifice of a hundred collective set designers can't put anything human in this film about a starving, fish-gutting artist who falls in love with his unattainable childhood sweetheart.

Missing a gasket or a wheel bearing or two along the way, it's almost impossible to care about the travails of either Ethan Hawke (the poor one) or Gwyneth Paltrow (the unattainable one) because we don't really know what makes them tick. Entire plot contrivances are glossed over as "not worth mentioning," a frustrating trend for pretty much every other movie like this that strives for epic grandeur and leaves us all aching for something palpable.

With Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft, Hank Azaria, Jeremy Kissner and Raquel Beaudene.

—Ian Williams

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