Great Expectations

Great Expectations (2012) is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel directed by Mike Newell — watch online on iFILM. Jeremy Irvine plays Pip, an orphan raised by his iron-fisted sister on the Kent marshes, who one night helps a desperate escaped convict and thinks nothing more of it. Years pass. A mysterious benefactor sends money and a London address, with instructions to make a gentleman of him.

Pip arrives in the city carrying one piece of unfinished business: Estella, the coldly beautiful ward of Miss Havisham, played by Helena Bonham Carter. Miss Havisham stopped every clock in the house at the moment she was jilted decades ago. She raised Estella specifically to punish men for what was done to her. Pip has been in love with Estella since childhood. She has been trained to feel nothing back. Ralph Fiennes plays Magwitch, the convict from the marshes — and his connection to Pip's story closes in ways Pip never anticipated.

Screenplay by David Nicholls. The cast also includes Robbie Coltrane, Holliday Grainger and Sally Hawkins. Newell keeps the Victorian setting intact and lets the performances carry Dickens' dark comedy of manners. Stream Great Expectations (2012) online on iFILM.