Julian Jarrold's adaptation shines not because of its faithfulness to the plot of the novel, but because of its effective use of character and mood. Both Abel Magwitch and Miss Havisham appear as ominous figures, much more so than in any other attempt to put Dickens' classic novel to film. Ioan Gruffuld's Pip, likewise, is more frightened as a child, more vulnerable as an adult, than we have ever seen him before. Estella is crueler and more beautiful. The mood throughout, from Pip's strange encounter in the graveyard, to his peculiar encounter with Orlick, to his final encounter with Estella, is often more grim, never more comic than the Dickens. A cloud seems to hang over everything, even its brightest comic moments, offered up in the movie by Wemmick and Herbert.