Directed by Mike Newell and featured at the recent Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Great Expectations tells the tale of a young boy named Pip (Jeremy Irvine, whose brother Toby plays the younger Pip) who is transformed from a blacksmith's son into a London gentleman thanks to an anonymous benefactor. The most distinct feature of Newell's version is the portrayal of Miss Havisham by Helena Bonham Carter.
The film is the latest in a long line of adaptations of Charles Dickens's 19th-century novel, and for Bonham Carter it was a chance to reacquaint herself with the work.
"I hadn't read the book in a while and the thing that struck me was the world of Dickens and the way he moulds his characters," she says. "There's tenderness to be found in all of them, or at least an understanding, and that's what Mike's done with Havisham. She's not a scowling witch, there's a reason she's as she is."
As Havisham, the actress looks almost ghostly - pale, with tattered clothes, wild hair and facial ticks ("I suppose she is a bit goth," she says, chuckling). For this novel interpretation, both she and Newell related the role to sufferers of real-life diseases, in this case osteoporosis.
"We certainly thought she would be suffering that. She hasn't seen sunlight in decades," Bonham Carter explains. "It was more in reference to how she would look, hold herself. Her joints had stiffened up, we decided, which is why I'm sitting a lot."
The film has been a success worldwide, with much praise for her haunting turn. But it almost never happened, given that Bonham Carter didn't think she was the right age.
"Every image we have of her on film is of an older woman. I thought: 'I'm not at that stage already, am I?'" she laughs. "Mike then convinced me I was the right age, as many people believe she was intended to be between mid-40s and early 50s. So he talked me into it, and younger actresses than me have played the part now, so I suppose I was worrying over nothing."
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps
Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID
Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight
In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter
Price: From Dh2,099
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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