‘Great Expectations’: David Lean’s Perceptive, Compassionate Film

Estella (Valerie Hobson) and Pip (John Mills), in "Great Expectations." Cineguild

NR | 1h 58min | Drama | 1946

In the 19th century, Charles Dickens’s novel “Great Expectations” looked at misandry, the unjustified hatred of men, and the devastation it wreaks on both sexes that’s so rampant in the 21st. David Lean’s Oscar-winning film (in cinematography) celebrates Dickens’s prescription for connection, not conflict, between women and men. Lean’s slimmer coming-of-age story is one of the most prophetic of that novel’s numerous adaptations.

The coarse but compassionate boy Pip (Anthony Wager) grows up orphaned in a British village, is brought up by benevolent blacksmith Joe Gargery (Bernard Milles), alongside his wife Mrs. Gargery, Pip’s irascible older sister (Freda Jackson), and, after her death, with empathetic Miss Biddy (Eileen Erskine).

Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt, L) advises a young Estella (Jean Simmons), in "Great Expectations." Cineguild

Ordered by the aristocratic, aging spinster Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) to be a playmate for her adopted teenage daughter Estella (Jean Simmons), Pip visits them. But Havisham was once jilted at the altar. Vain and still smarting, she condemns herself and Estella to her darkened mansion, and to breaking the hearts of as many boys and men as they can manage. Pip’s too young to fathom it all. He falls for Estella and fights, if playfully, a boy-relative of Havisham’s, Herbert Pocket (John Forrest)—all as Miss Havisham has planned.  

Thanks to a mysterious patron operating through the lawyer Mr. Jaggers (Francis L. Sullivan), Pip develops great expectations—first as a classy but conceited youth, amid London’s entitled aristocracy, and next as a more circumspect adult.

Magwitch (Finlay Currie) is a convict who secretly provided for Pip’s ascent into privilege, to repay the boy Pip’s kindness to him years before. Pip thinks his benefactor is Havisham. Now that he knows his benefactor, with Pocket’s (Alec Guiness as adult character) help, he plans to return Magwitch’s kindness by escorting him to safety from resentful fellow convicts. He also begs Estella (Valerie Hobson) to break from her wretched misandrist past and the now dead Havisham’s spite that lives on in her.

Magwitch (Finlay Currie, L) and little Pip (Anthony Wager) meet, in "Great Expectations." Cineguild

Lean singles out truthful respect for the past as critical to salvific self-discovery. History isn’t an unseeing freezing of time. Havisham’s and Estella’s slavish relish in the corruption of cobwebs, clothes, curtains, carpets, candles, and clocks is a hatred and perversion of the past. Without a lovingly preserved past, the present and future lose meaning.

Role Models

Estella’s sole model of womanhood was Havisham, and it threatens to overwhelm Estella; she enjoys playing one man against another. Several positive role models nurture the best of manhood in Pip: Joe, Jaggers, Pocket, and Magwitch.

Adult Pip fondly recalls their playful childhood, but Estella stays distant: “You meant nothing to me. Why should I remember? I have no heart. Perhaps that’s why I have no memory. Oh, I have a heart to be stabbed at, but you know what I mean. There’s no sympathy there, no softness, no sentiment.”

Pip sees through Havisham’s brainwashing and dismisses Estella’s assessment as drivel. Estella persists, “Remember how I have been brought up, and don’t expect too much of me.” In trying to “deceive and entrap” men, it’s Estella who’s deceived and entrapped by her upbringing. 

Tutored by Havisham, Estella prefers the false security of multiple, shallow relationships; if she’s not invested, she can’t get hurt. Pip exposes his heart to others, which allows others to hurt him. It’s not enough to care. Love demands that one care enough.

Estella cares for Pip, but as a curiosity, not as a companion.

Estella (Valerie Hobson) and Pip (John Mills), in "Great Expectations." Cineguild

Children sometimes abbreviate to simplify a complex world and make it fit in with their simplicity. So Pip’s “infant tongue” prefers “Pip” to his father’s name, Pirrip, or his own Christian name, Phillip. As a child, he handpicks memories to make some sense of his past. But as an adult, he draws on memories, good and bad, to shape his character, including many that he masked because they were too painful to endure as a child.

Pip demonstrates that it isn’t what we inherit that defines us, but how we respond to what we’re given. Havisham, Estella, and Pip all inherit something. Only Pip responds with humility and gratitude. Heiress Havisham imagines everything can be bequeathed. So she bequeaths her pent-up emotion against men by living out retaliatory retribution through Estella.

Estella calls Pip “boy” before getting around to calling him by name. That’s Havisham’s grooming—denying individuality, personhood, and capacity for change. Pip defies this. No, not all boys are the same. Not all men are the same. He respects Estella as an individual, not as a facsimile of Havisham. He has great expectations of her: Why not live up to the best of womanhood, rather than its worst?

You can watch “Great Expectations” on Max, TCM, and Amazon Video. 

‘Great Expectations’ Director: David Lean Starring: John Mills, Valerie Hobson Not Rated Running Time: 1 hour, 58 minutes Release Date: May 22, 1947 Rated: 5 stars out of 5

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