Review: A Tale of Two Cities, starring Kit Harington, leans heavily into the worst of times
This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.
See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.
Set us as preferred Even had you never read Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” or even known of its existence, the odds are good that you have somewhere encountered its much quoted opening and closing lines: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” and (spoiler) “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known,” respectively, the latter possibly in the course of a Ronald Colman imitation.(Please do not ask who Ronald Colman is.)Reckoned to be Dickens’ most popular novel, it has been several times filmed for the big and small screens, going back to 1911 — the big-budget Colman version came in 1935 — but has not been mounted in this century, until now, with a four-part adaptation premiering Sunday on MGM+ in a co-production with BBC One.
It stars Kit Harington, whom “Game of Thrones” people know as Jon Snow, as Sydney Carton, a disheveled, cynical, self-loathing, alcoholic, yet clever London lawyer.London is one of the two cities whose tale this is.
Paris, before and during the Revolution, is the other.Daniel West’s adaptation hits the major plot points and select lines of dialogue, but has typically, unavoidably, been streamlined and compressed.Characters disappear, or have their attributes and actions assigned to different characters.
But much has been added as well.Most of these alterations are trivial, although one major change, coming near the end, is a very bad idea.
I can’t tell you what it is, though.Other than that, the most substantial changes are to Lucie Manette (Mirren Mack), the female lead, in order to give her a more active, heroic role in the story, this being 2026.(Not that Dickens didn’t write a heroine or two.) So we meet her, a Frenchwoman raised in England, sneaking out at ni...