Good

Beautiful scenery and costumes. Great acting in the lead roles. I liked the idea of the structure of jumping back and forth in time, though it was sometimes confusing. I also found a lot of the dialogue forced. It was used too often as a device to remind us something about the character or circumstances and didn't feel natural. Overall, I didn't feel totally immersed and convinced by the chemistry of the family and the time period.

I'm a big fan of the 1994 version, so going into this it had big shoes to fill. I loved the acting in this one and found myself crying at several times. I think the way this one was done with the two halves of the story interwoven to show emotional themes was very interesting, but I also found it jarring. If I didn't already know the story I would be lost. I took my kids to see it to introduce them to one of my favorite stories, but they couldn't follow the plot very well.

While the performance, set/costume design and score were very good, the editing of the film was very confusing. I appreciated the effort to tie early and late events together thematically, but the lack of differentiation between time periods made it difficult to follow. Also, many scenes lingered when they should have been quick, while others, such as Beth's death and Meg's romance, were rushed and barely made an impact.