Rigid, unnatural, yet servicable. An average adaptation

Rating: 5/10 (22 December 2019)

The direction feels cold. The performances are rigid and unnatural. Everything feels so rushed. I felt empty when the first part ended, which in all honesty, is also the worst part in the original novel, so it gets a pass.
The second leg of the film really picks up and shows a bit more of that directorial flare. For the better or worse, the film retains the backbone of the novel, which in my opinion is slow and bloated at parts. It is a nice story with a memorable twist, the latter of which is well delivered here and makes for considerable satisfaction as the film ended. All in all, the film feels more focused than the novel, and yet it also shuns a lot of the aspects in the novel that I consider as highlights, such as the excellent character building and the sometimes sweeping feel of the prose, none of which is translated to the film medium.
This is a film of inconsistent quality that did its basic job at adapting a very famous novel.