Chris Bradley – Google

If I'd never read the book or seen the 1981 series, I might have given this three stars rather than two, but it suffers significantly from comparison to either. The casting and acting are fine (I suspect that these actors could have done a fabulous job with better material) but the storyline and scripting have been messed around and dumbed down too much. Making the Charles/Julia romance into the centrepiece of the story is a fundamental misstep that only leads to other false notes and childish plot subversions. I'm left rolling my eyes and wondering who the producers and director thought they were targeting for an audience. It was always too sociologically complex and psychologically subtle a story for the Hollywood blockbuster treatment.