Lise’s review published on Letterboxd:
I'll admit that I am not the biggest fan of large-scale epics that span decades or generations. I particularly dislike the big scores that accompany them. There are exceptions, of course, but I always have to overcome an initial ick factor.
David Lean is one of if not the master of such films, and for the most part I've enjoyed his sweeping dramas once I get over my initial reactions. I thought his entire body of work consisted of epics, so it was refreshing to go through his earlier catalogue from the David Lean Directs Noel Coward collection and see some of his simpler films.
Great Expectations was his first attempt at playing with the epic style. He unabashedly lets the style be known from the get-go with music so over-the-top that it was irritating. The problem was that the music was too big for the 4x3 black and white visuals. It felt disjointed, like I was watching a film from the early 30s with music that didn't fit with that era. It worked better about 1 hour into the film, either because I was used to it by then or the story fit better with the music at that point. That beginning though, wow. Truly too much.
One interesting thing is that Lean inserted whimsy in the first quarter of the film. Perhaps he was still a little bit in Noel Coward mode. There were at least two occasions where the score teased us, being light and flighty, then coming full stop at the exact moment that a character was to say something. That was a lovely surprise and I looked forward to more instances of this playfulness, but Lean never did it again for the rest of the film.
The performances all seemed top-notch, especially by the lawyer and Pips benefactor. The sets were amazing. I mean absolutely gorgeous. Miss Havisham's house and rooms, all spider webs and dust actually felt claustrophobic, as did the lawyer's office for completely different reasons.
I can't say that Great Expectations was as great as his future epics, but it was a good start. It would be interesting to study the techniques he used to turn this one into a (small) epic and compare it to his future ones to determine at what point he became a master of the genre.