Review of Crime and Punishment

I'd been wondering if there was a really good adaptation of "Crime and Punishment" out there and my cousin suggested Kulidzhanov's might be worth a look. And it's not bad. There are some wonderful shots and nice touches, particularly in the tense early scenes. Taratorkin does a fine job as Raskolnikov, haunted and conflicted. Most of the other roles are well-cast too, although unfortunately the female parts tend to hysteria, but that's more likely the fault of the director than the actresses. It's quite watchable for a 3.5 hour movie. However, I felt too much time was spent on secondary characters. It's been a while since I've read the novel, but I'm certain that many of those terrific Raskolnikov-Porfiry battles of wits are missing. The scenes involving Sonya or Svidrigailov or Luzhin make for interesting drama, but they're given too much prominence here. What we care about is Raskolnikov's state of mind, and perhaps this is where any adaptation is destined to fail. Although the action of the story is compelling and the production is generally more than competent, it just feels like there's something missing.