Crime and Punishment

This miniseries has its good points. Raskolnikov's farewell to his mother is moving; Sonya is believably sweet; the interrogation scenes are better than average; Marmeladov's long soliloquy is very well-acted.

However, there are a lot of problems. First, too many of the characters are too creepy and overdrawn, bordering on the freakish. The overacting gets seriously out of hand, especially during the funeral luncheon and its aftermath.

And, as weak as the novel's epilogue is, the film version's is even weaker, amounting to a trite exchange between Porfiry and Sonya and a reprint of the last paragraph of the book over a shot of someone crying.

And I don't think that Svidrigailov should end up as one of the story's more sympathetic characters -- thanks partly to the fact that the actor shows restraint in his role, and therefore seems recognizably human; and partly to the fact that the character's most unsavory urges have been excised from the teleplay.

Finally, I had mixed feelings about Hurt's performance. He spends a lot of the time looking scared and sweaty, but only occasionally conveys Raskolnikov's intelligence and sensitivity.

7/10