Amazon.com: First screened on BBC in 2001, The Way We Live Now will surprise those who know Anthony Trollope through the subtleties of his Barsetshire novels. This story of ambition centers around Augustus Melmotte, an Austrian Jewish financier who takes the London money markets and social scene by storm in his efforts to become an "English country gentleman." His rise and fall is followed with remorseless logic by Trollope, and David Yates's direction keeps this in focus against a wealth of subplots and character interaction.
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
Product Description: The Way We Live Now captures the turmoil as the old order is swept aside by the brash new forces of business and finance. Based on the novel by Anthony Trollope this satire of Victorian society contains the trials and tribulations of young love the pettiness of the upper class life the raw energy and excitement of the most powerful city the world had ever seen and the greed and corruption that lay just below its glittering surface.Running Time: 300 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 794051162021 Manufacturer No: E1620
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.
A well-acted, albeit condensed version of Anthony Trollope's work. The Way We Live Now is a 2001 BBC production that is an adaptation of Anthony Trollope's novel of the same name. The story has at its center the story of Augustus Melmotte [a magnificent David Suchet], a European financier who comes to London to set up shop, accompanied by a docile wife and daughter, Marie [Shirley Henderson]. Melmotte is actually a swindler, but does such a good job of cloaking his true designs that it is not till much later that his chicanery is exposed.
Though Melmotte's story is the center of the story, there are numerous other sub-plots that keep the story fresh and intriguing - Matthew McFadyen [Mr Darcy of Pride and Prejudice 2005] plays Sir Felix Carbury, an impoverished baronet with a gambling addiction who tries to woo Marie Melmotte to get her inheritance, his sister Hetta Carbury [Paloma Baeza] plays a sensible girl who finds herself rejecting the advances of her cousin in favour of the attentions of a young engineer and railroad builder, Paul Montague [Cillian Murphy], Georgiana Longstaffe [Anne-Marie Duff] a young lady of noble birth who finds herself yearning to be married, yet lacking suitable suitors, and Mrs Hurtle [Miranda Otto] an American who comes to London hoping to rekindle her affair and regain the affections of Paul Montague.
It is indeed hard to compress Anthony Trollope's work into a 6 hour mini-series, and the series doesn't do the book justice in this aspect. But, it is nevertheless an entertaining, well-acted adaptation with a stellar cast that paints a vivid portrayal of London society in the late 19th century - characterised by greed, corruption, ambition, love, and human frailty. The attention to period detail adds a lot to one's enjoyment of the series and truly evokes the atmosphere of the times. Though I felt some of the characters lacked sufficient development -case in point being Marie Melmotte who goes from being a love-struck swooning damsel to a woman of resolve all too quickly, the story is well-told in general.
This is a series worth watching if you are an Anglophile, a fan of period dramas, or just interested in a well-told story. David Suchet's performance as the overly ambitious Melmotte alone makes it a compelling watch.
See the Film/Read the Book! These seemingly endless period dramas churned out by the BBC and others are valuable in that they can be viewed as a kind of visual "Cliff's Notes" for us busy folk who can't find the time to read the original novels. Bottom line is this: you should read the book no matter what, especially if it's by Anthony Trollope, one of English literature's most consistently great writers. If you watch the movie first, you MAY be interested enough in the story and characters to read the book later. In fact, I'd say that is good criteria for judging the quality of one of these period movies: if, after viewing the film, you are stimulated enough to rush out and read the book, then the film must be good--providing it's a faithful adaptation. This one is. It's a six-hour presentation, but even that is not really long enough to accurately deliver the full impact of Trollope's masterpiece. The young couple who end up together are the most likable characters; the rest, with the exception of the spurned Jewish banker, are all vain, pompous, avaricious and spiteful. They are cynical caricatures, if you will, but that was Trollope's intent as a satirist.
review of the way we live now I did not like this film. The characters were not well developed and some were absolutely revolting. There was not one to whom I related or cared about their outcome in the plot . I will not watch it a second time and would like to sell it back to Amazon.
Terrible. Does not do justice to a brilliant book (spoilers) Let me start by saying that I am not a purist. I can live with changes to a story, but only if those changes don't change it materially or take away from its spirit. The changes made by Andrew Davies to The Way We Live Now upset me greatly -- he most definitely did change the story to the point where its essence was no longer recognizable.
The Way We Live Now is considered by many (yours truly included) to be Trollope's masterpiece. Trollope's Melmotte is a thoroughly corrupt man, but Davies glosses over this corruption to focus on Sir Felix Carbury's sex life. People will say that, with only a few hours to work with, certain choices have to be made. I fully understand that. But Davies' choices baffle me. Why not show the depth of Melmotte's corruption and greed? Why not show what a true and complete disaster the dinner party for the Chinese emperor was? The dinner party was, in my opinion, the turning point of the book. It's where Melmotte's downfall goes from being mere rumor to being public knowledge. This is key to the story, and I'd rather have seen that on my screen than Sir Felix rolling in the hay with Ruby. It has nothing to do with prudishness. It does, however, have everything to do with the fact that Trollope wrote about white collar crime and corruption, and this film shows us very little about what Trollope wrote.
But, as per usual, Davies has other things on his mind. His Sir Felix Carbury is a misunderstood, lovable cad. Trollope's is a dissolute, depraved man whose selfishness and self-absorption almost ruin his mother and sister. In the book, we see that Sir Felix tries to rape Ruby, but Davies glosses over this by putting it way off into the background. Davies would rather focus on Marie Melmotte's attempts to grope Sir Felix at her father's dinner table than on the original story.
The cast is outstanding, except for Miranda Otto (she and her truly embarrassing attempt at an American accent are woefully miscast as Mrs. Hurtle -- I hope she's gotten better since this) and Cillian Murphy (he looks delicate enough to be a girl, not an engineer trying to strike it rich in the American southwest), as are the production values. It's just such a shame that the story is butchered almost beyond recognition. Trollope's ending is not ambiguous. Sir Felix pays for his sins. Davies' ending is nothing if not ambiguous. Sir Felix is still out there, having fun.
Trollope's been dramatized better than this. The Pallisers is, in my mind, the best series the Beeb has ever made. They should be embarrassed by this one.
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