Fingersmith (2005)

Incredibly disappointing compared to it's counterpart, "The Handmaiden." It follows the book more accurately, but unfortunately, it just was not as good... not even close.

⋆⋆ // 2 STARS

Director: Aisling Walsh

Where to Watch: I watched this with a free trial on Amazon

Google User Rating: 95% liked this movie!

"I know you've got my clothes! You've got even my bleeding bangles! Why? Isn’t your fortune enough? Isn’t what you did to me enough?" (Sue Trinder)

So this movie isn't quite a "movie," it's actually two separate episodes, both 1.5 hours long... Whatever, still counts!!

Quick Synopsis

I mean, it's essentially the same beginning as "The Handmaiden," the ending was just way different, and 1000% for the worse. But I'll give another quick summary and include the slight changes... Girl is a thief in England (with a terrible British accent, I'm sorry it's just the writing combined with her accent. Not great), goes to be a handmaiden to this rich guy's niece in

order to make her fall in love with her partner in crime who's posing as a book forger (I'm pretty sure) because the uncle is a book collector, but only sells fake books because he loves the real ones too much? Whatever, not important... anyways thief and rich niece end up falling in love... will the thief go through with her plan to marry her off to the guy, and end up throwing her in the mad house? Right, forgot to mention, they plan to kill the rich lady in an insane asylum after getting her money. On to the review.

Official Review

Um, trash. Honestly, it's kind of hilarious how much worse this one is compared to "The

Handmaiden," which if you didn't know was also based off the Fingersmith book, but based in Korea instead and spoken in Japanese (this threw me off at first). The endings are both "happy endings," but how the Fingersmith plot ended up to that ending is ridiculous, I was repeatedly "'bruh'ing" the entire time, in fact, I ended up skipping forward a bunch of times near the end... To be completely fair, the first half wasn't the worse. Seeing them fall in love was pretty cute, but other than that. Trash. The characters were weird, and the plot twists were not even close to being as surprising as the ones in "The Handmaiden." Save yourself the trouble (and time... 3 hours?? No sir.) and watch "The Handmaiden" instead, its a masterpiece. The Fingersmith

is just... subpar. The fashion was nice I guess? They really just passed over one of the biggest character development events, which was annoying... if you watch both movies you'll know what I'm talking about, but don't watch both. Only watch Handmaiden... I don't know how it got 95% on Google rating, so disappointing.

Cast/Heartthrobs

Really not much to say about this one... I guess Elaine Cassidy as the rich niece was hot, and she didn't do too bad. She's very beautiful and talented, the plot just ruined it for me. It was Sally Hawkins' accent that just KILLED ME. Sounded just like Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins... I'm so sorry, she's even literally British, I just couldn't take it seriously in the movie... Hawkins was really good in Paddington though! Also Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter is in this, that mean lady in all pink.