So, watching the Hopkins adaptation was a bit like a family reunion. I really liked it, and I loved the cast. Lear, Kent, and Gloucester are all wonderful. I remember that Emma Thompson at the time of filming hated playing Goneril because the character is so horrible, but she and Emily Watson as the two evil sisters were tremendously vile and repellant. I did not know the lovely young actress playing Cordelia, but I liked her very much. I don't know who played Goneril's evil servant, but he was appropriately loathesome.
I did not mind the textual cuts, and I thought the story came through loud and clear. Setting the play in the present was interesting, particularly since the election, since it brings out the malice and ugliness behind the political intrigues. The blinding of Gloucester, with its brutality and bloodiness - along with the murder of Cornwall in the middle of it - is really intense. The scene itself is the first moment of reall brutality and ugliness after scenes of family intrigue and name calling, and after that, there's no turning back. Then there are the two tremendous reunion scenes between the fathers and their wronged children, and I think I spent the remainder of the film weeping over it.
