ingredients : starving artist lusting after a beautiful woman from his childhood synopsis : great expectations ( 1998 ) is a modernized version of a charles dickens novel .
in the original charles dickens classic
an orphan boy named pip learns about life through his friendship with an escaped convict , his relationship with a bitter old lady named miss havisham , and his hopeless lifetime infatuation with havisham 's snobbish adopted daughter , estella .
the gist of the story is that an anonymous benefactor sends pip to london for pip to become an upper class " gentleman .
"
pip leaves for london with " great expectations " to be groomed into a gentleman so that he can one day be classy enough to marry estella .
but life has a way of complicating things .
pip becomes an arrogant s .
o .
b .
until he learns just who his secret benefactor is .
in this new 1998 version of great expectations a poor florida lad named finn ( ethan hawke ) with a talent for drawing has an early memory of helping an escaped convict ( robert de niro ) .
but soon the focus of finn 's life becomes romance , as he develops a lifelong infatuation with estella ( gwyneth paltrow ) , an upper crust girl with some psychological and emotional issues due to being raised in a dysfunctional environment .
estella was raised in wealth by ms .
dinsmoor ( anne bancroft ) , an eccentric , aged and embittered , man - hating single aunt whose groom left her abandoned at the altar on the day of her marriage .
this causes estella to ' fear the daylight ' of relationships , but finn thinks it 's just a case of snobbery .
when finn becomes a young man , an anonymous benefactor sets finn up in new york with the connections and publicity to be groomed into a famous artist .
finn leaves florida with " great expectations " to be a successful artist so that some day he might become classy enough to marry the snobbish estella .
what will happen to all of finn 's " great expectations ?
" opinion : if you 're looking for a romance with a happy ending ,
look no further
; you 've found one here .
ethan hawke is romantic lead .
( he romanced winona ryder in reality bites .
he romanced julie delpy in before sunrise .
he romanced uma thurman in gattaca .
now in great expectations he gets to chase gwyneth paltrow , a rail - thin blonde . )
hawke plays a lovestruck , earnest and unchanged finn throughout the film .
meanwhile paltrow portrays estella as alternating between infuriating tease and ice princess ; estella 's whole purpose is to get men to fall in love and then hurt them rather than become intimate .
anne bancroft goes a little overboard as the deranged and pessimistic ms .
dinsmoor , while robert de niro carries off the convict part suitably .
the difference between the classic dickens novel and this 1998 adaptation is that the dickens novel is ripe with deep and timeless themes about class struggle and love , whereas great expectations ( 1998 ) is more artsy , less complicated story about a 1990s artist dealing with a lifetime tease .
look no further carries off the convict part suitably