As an opening to a novel, it is hard to beat - the orphan surveying the tombstone of his parents one murky Christmas Eve, when he is set upon by a terrifying escaped convict.
And so begins Great Expectations, Dickens's novel about a young man's painful journey to self-knowledge, via a dawning realisation about how much money cannot do. The book is stuffed with memorable characters and scenes of great dramatic intensity and pathos. David Lean once made a terrific film of it, and recently there has been another attempt (Cert. 15, Director Alfonso Cuaron), starring Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert de Niro.
This latest attempt sets the story in contemporary Florida and New York. Could that work, I asked myself as I bought my cinema ticket? Could Dickens's story leap a century and a half and remain essentially intact?
