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	Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now Matthew Macfadyen, Paloma Baeza BBC Warner, 2002 average customer review:based on 41 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The cast is a strong one, with David Suchet's Melmotte gripping in his recklessness, climaxing in the theatrical magnificence of his departure in disgrace from the House of Commons. Shirley Henderson is magnetic as his put-upon daughter Marie, courted by the cream-of-society bachelors for her dowry rather than her person. Cheryl Campbell gives a good account of the feckless Lady Carbury, writing vacuous novels to support her family, with Matthew MacFadyen relishing the part of her rakish son, Felix. Paloma Baeza is sympathetic as her daughter, Hetta, whose on-off relationship with entrepreneur Paul Montague, ably taken by Cillian Murphy, provides the main love interest. Douglas Hodge impresses as the loyal and sincere but insipid Roger Carbury.

The series consists of four generous episodes, each lasting 75 minutes. This is an absorbing production of what isn't the most subtle of Victorian novels, but which surely remains among the most relevant. --Richard Whitehouse

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Fabulous!

This is an excellent production. The acting by both Matthew McFadden and David Suchet along with a brilliant supporting cast is amazing and a joy to behold. The movie is full of laughs but also a bit unnerving at times by all the greed and malice. It is a true delight to watch. This is one of the best BBC productions to date.


The Cash Nexus

I believe it was Freud who said that the two great motivators in human affairs are money and sex. But the only motivator that is on display in Anthony Trollope's THE WAY WE LIVE NOW is money. Ok, that is not entirely true. There are at least four characters who are motivated by higher things. But, by and large, the message writ loud and clear in this novel and series is that money is what moves people to do what they do and the pursuit of personal fortune is the engine that drives men to build empires.

Perhaps no one is more aware of Freud's observation than Lady Carbury. Though the Carbury's are a noble family, they are also a family that has fallen on hard times. In an attempt to swell the dwindling family fortune Lady Carbury begins writing pulp historical fiction with titles like The Wicked Women of History. Even though she is nobility her literary taste and talent are strictly Grub Street as are her social mores and in order to solicit publisher Mr. Brown's interest in her book she is willing to solicit herself to Mr. Brown. Lady Carbury has two children, Felix and Henrietta (Hetta). Felix is a fop and a wastrel who gambles, whores, and drinks; while Hetta is a pure soul driven only by genuine love. Felix, like his mother, has few scruples and is also driven by the desire to land a fortune using any means necessary. When Felix discovers that the internationally famous financier Melmotte has an unmmarried daughter named Marie, Felix, assured of his own irresistable charms, sets his sites on capturing the Melmotte fortune by marrying Marie.

The (unofficial) Carbury family motto is "virtue ain't the way the world works." Or, at least, this is Lady Carbury and Felix's motto. Hetta is disgusted by the both of them and sets her sites on Mr. Paul Montague, a dashing young engineer just back from California and with big plans to find backers for his next big project, the South Pacific Railway.

In other words, all paths to Melmotte lead.

Melmotte is a larger than life character who also happens to be Jewish, so while nearly all of London needs to court his financial favor, they loathe having to shake his hand. Melmotte is well aware of this, but he doesn't care for he gets a perverse pleasure out of making the proud British lords and ladies grovel at his feet. No dream is too big for Melmotte and the penultimate dream of this Viennese Jew is to become an English lord and sit in Parliament. This character is really more of a caricature but Trollope avoids the charge of antisemitism by using the character not to cast apsersions on any particular ethnicity but to reveal the social hypocrisy of late nineteenth-century Britain.

Melmotte's motto is to make history (by financing world changing projects like the South Pacific Railroad) but make money too. His other motto is that it is your duty to make yourself rich and he delivers this second one during an extravagant dinner in which he views his guests as so many gluttons grabbing all they can get and devouring it. Melmotte in all of his egotistical glory sees himself as the master of the feast. The moment is surreal and is one of those instances when you appreciate how well the BBC revises the classics, even the minor ones.

The only character that trumps Melmotte himself for our attentions is his daughter Marie (played by Shirley Henderson). Every financially strapped English lord in London tries to win her favor in order to access her father's fortune but she is a very strange creature indeed and Henderson obviosuly has a ball with the character while never quite making her into a caricature. Marie is perhaps the most victimized creature in the entire four-part miniseries because all that she wants is to be loved but no one can see her as anything but as a stepping stone to her fathers money. When Felix comes courting and plants a kiss on her she thinks she has finally found happiness, but of course she hasn't, and her reactions are immensely watchable. She's strange, very strange, "like an odd little monkey" as one guest says, but also very interesting.

Needless to say the greedy get their just desserts. This is one of the most enjoyable BBC productions that I have seen in quite a while.

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Those who speculate risk winning....or losing it all

David Suchet is a dastardly swindler with magnetic voice and convincing speeches... he will draw you into this film and keeps you there. This delightful film is rife with humor and a little bit of romance, while never straying from the premise of what social climbers will do to themselves and each other.

You will love to hate some of the characters and find yourself wondering if they get what they deserved. All the aristocrats have intertwining storylines - you find yourself laughing and judging; engrossed in their antics and troubles. Everyone wants to BELIEVE something.... Believe they are justified in their actions, or believe in the "Mexican Railway scheme", or believe that they CAN marry for love over money...... who will be crushed by reality and who will overcome?

The costume is wonderful and the actors are excellent. However, I would have given the film 5 stars if it were not for Miranda Otto's forced "southern belle" accent. But do not let that deter you from this excellent production! It is a wonderful film with equally amusing and dark moments - Those involved rationalize the changing of the times as 'the way we live now.'

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

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