THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF MOLL FLANDERS (BFS, 1996) D: David Attwood, w/ Alex Kingston, Daniel Craig. Rating: NNN DVD package: NN Rating: NNN
There’s no shortage of sex in this four-part adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s 1722 novel about a woman trying get along on her own, but it gets a forthright treatment that avoids both sniggering and cheesy eroticism and very much reflects the character of Moll herself. Moll is out to marry for money. So are the men she meets, and it’s the conflict between love and money that drives a story that ranges from funny to almost tragic.
Born in prison and orphaned in her first week, Moll gets lucky when she’s taken in by the local mayor and raised almost as one of the family. Mistress to one of his sons, she’s married to the other and widowed early. Her next husband is a spendthrift, the third a disaster of a different sort, likewise the fourth and fifth. Along the way, she meets the love of her life, commits adultery, incest and robbery and lands in jail.
Alex Kingston carries the miniseries easily, making Moll believably charming and despairing by turns. Daniel Craig is suitably dashing as her great love, and Diana Rigg and Patti Love both come close to stealing the show in major supporting roles.
Unless you fancy reading the novel on your screen, the extras aren’t much.
EXTRAS Cast and Defoe bios, the novel on DVD-ROM. Full-frame. English audio. No subtitles.
