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Great Expectations | 2012 | PG-13 | - 1.5.2

A new adaptation of the celebrated Charles Dickens novel: a humble orphan suddenly becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor. With Toby Irvine, Jason Flemyng, William Ellisa and Helena Bonham-Carter. Directed by Mike Newell. [2:08]

SEX/NUDITY 1 - A young man holds a young woman's head in his hands, they kiss and the young woman pulls away.
 A young man and young woman are very close and appear about to kiss until they are interrupted by a man. A young woman goes to kiss a young man, the young man pulls away and tells her that he cannot love her. A man kisses a woman on the cheek while standing under the mistletoe. A boy kisses a girl on the cheek.
 A man and a young woman hold hands and the young woman leans against the man as they sit on the ground. A man and a woman hold hands.
 A young man and a young woman dance a waltz while the young man makes eye contact with another young man throughout the dance. A boy and a girl dance, lightly holding hands.
 We see a boy's bare chest as a man washes his head. A portion of a young man's chest is visible when his shirt is unbuttoned. A young woman wears a low-cut dress that exposes a portion of her cleavage and entire upper chest. A young woman wears a low-cut dress and her cleavage is visible.

VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - We see a woman putting her hands around a sleeping woman's neck to choke her, as a man narrates, and the woman being choked stabs the other woman's arms repeatedly (smears of blood are seen on the woman's arms; we learn that the woman had survived the stabbing, but the sleeping woman had died).
 A woman wearing an old wedding dress catches on fire after she knocks over a candle and she is immediately engulfed in flames; a young man rushes to help her, he wraps her in a heavy curtain and opens it to reveal the woman's flesh black and cracked with a red glossy appearance and she gasps and dies in the young man's arms.
 A man holds a young man at knifepoint, and we see the knife next to the young man's throat until another young man rushes in and interrupts them; the young man is then seen unharmed and the two young men discuss how the man had tried to kill the young man.
 A man angrily flips a boy upside down and shakes him, shouts a series of threats at the boy, including telling the boy to return the following morning with "wheels" or a man will be sent out after him to "eat his liver" (the man is filthy and appears to have his hands and feet chained as though he had escaped from jail).
 Two men wrestle in the mud and beat each other as we see a group of soldiers holding guns surround them; a soldier goes to break up the fight and we see him strike one of the men in the face with the butt of a gun and then the two men are seen being lead away by the armed soldiers; one of the captive men is held at gunpoint when he says he has a confession and he admits to stealing a pie and a file from a man's house.
 A man, leading a boat filled with police, shouts at another man and two young men on a second boat as the two boats come very close to one another and when two men from different boats grab one another, one of the men tips into the water; a large steam boat approaches the men, smashing one of the boats and a man is taken under the large paddle and then re-surfaces, face-down in the water; a young man shouts for him and we see the man flip around unharmed.
 A young man has a flashback to himself as a boy, watching as two men try to kill one another (they are wrestling in the mud). In a courtroom a man lunges at another man, and they wrestle momentarily but are pulled apart. A man lunges to attack another man, and he makes an angry remark and a young man (the man's nephew) holds him back.
 A woman shouts at a boy and a man and whips them both with a large cane. A woman shoves a boy's (her younger brother) head in a bucket repeatedly and scrubs his head roughly; a man watching then kicks the stool under the boy (he is unharmed).
 A boy offers to "fight" another boy and we see him swing at the boy multiple times; the other boy punches the boy once, he falls to the ground, stands back up and the two shake hands. A classroom of children throw sticks and wadded up paper at a boy until a teen girl interrupts them and the children stop. A man and a young woman throw clumps of dirt at a young man while the man laughs, saying it is for "good luck." A girl slaps a boy on the face and the boy gasps in surprise. A girl kicks a boy's foot with disgust.
 A boy wakes a sleeping man on the side of the road; the man stands up and tries to chase the boy (we see that his hands and legs are chained together implying that the man had escaped from jail) but stumbles and falls to the ground with a thud.
 A young man becomes angry then shouts at a woman and the woman shouts back; a young woman interrupts them and the young man shouts at her. A woman shouts at another woman. A young man shouts at a man who ignores his anger. A young man shouts at a young woman and she tries to argue back, but the two embrace.
 A man warns a boy that a woman (his guardian) is going to be mad, and shoves padding into the boy's pants to alleviate the pain from her whipping him.
 A woman stands up to chase a boy (her younger brother) and a group of soldiers enter the room with their guns drawn; they are then seen laughing and joking with the soldiers. A young man tells another young man to put up his fists and fight, then playfully punches him on the arm. Two young men arm wrestle one another.
 Several young men rapidly shove past a woman. A man yanks his hand away from a young man. A young man, a man and an older man all light a cannon and it explodes over a city street (no one is harmed). A group of men throw glasses on the ground and playfully food-fight with each other; one man is hoisted up on other men's shoulders and playfully throws food and glasses to the ground.
 A man pours salve on the injured hand of a young man; his hand is red and shiny and it appears to have been burned. A man refers to two casts of death masks, we see one with its tongue out and a second wincing in pain; the man makes a series of remarks about the men being hung from the trenches and gallows. A young man visits a dying man and he appears to close his eyes to die.
 A young man wakes up with a start; he is obviously ill and has a disturbing nightmare of being arrested and fainting. A young man watches a man sleep; the man is clutching a large knife and the young man looks slightly disturbed.
 In a courtroom, a man is sentenced to death. A woman tells a man that her husband had died two years earlier; the man apologizes and the woman remarks that she is unaffected by her husband's death. A boy cries at a gravesite that we assume is the grave of his dead father. A man tells two young men that his daughter had died while he was in prison (we know the girl is alive). A young man tells another young man that a woman's mother had died when the woman was a child. A man tells a young man that a man has been told that his young daughter died while he was in prison, but instead the man had sold the young girl to a woman. A young woman tells a young man that she does not have a heart.
 A woman refers to a table of preserved and partially rotting food and we see a mouse chewing on it. We see a man rapidly chopping a rack of ribs with a large butcher knife. A man is seen throwing raw meat into a bin. We see the severed heads of dead pigs hung from hooks in a market. A man spits out a glass of liquor, saying it had been mixed with water.

LANGUAGE 2 - 3 mild obscenities, name-calling (ungrateful, cowardly [mild obscenity deleted], stupid clumsy laboring boy, very proud, common boy, vulture, tarter, talk like an apple, country folk, arms of a blacksmith).

SUBSTANCE USE - We see a boy pouring a bottle of liquor into a carafe for a man, a man vaguely refers to his own abuse of alcohol as "eating him up," and a group of men toast and drink wine. We see young men smoking cigarettes, and a man smokes a pipe.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Smuggling criminals, poor upbringing, being left at the altar, disappointment, depression, unrequited love, repayment of debt.

MESSAGE - Every person has a history.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.

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