The Brothers Karamazov

A disappointing adaptation of a classic, in the same drawer as "Doctor Zhivago", but even less gripping. Perhaps time has caught up with Richard Brooks's adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel, for the film felt far too long, frightfully superficial and thunderingly sentimental.

"The Brothers Karamazov" is about the wealthy bon vivant Fyodor Karamazov and his four sons, all of whom have an ambivalent relationship with their father, if they do not downright hate him. The womanising, gambling-mad Dmitri wants his share of his rightful inheritance, but his father refuses, for he is meanness itself, his own needs excepted. For the same reason Fyodor Karamazov will not acknowledge the servant Smerdyakov as his son, for it is cheaper to have a servant than a son.

When Dmitri falls in love with the beautiful but flighty innkeeper Grushenka, trouble is in store, for Grushenka has until now been Fyodor's mistress. In fact, the father has offered Grushenka marriage, which she has so far declined. It ends with Dmitri murdering his father out of jealousy, but that does not bring only misfortune, for the ensuing trial convinces Grushenka and Dmitri that the two of them are meant for each other. In the end Dmitri's brothers help him escape together with Grushenka, but by then I had more or less fallen asleep.