How does the BBC production "The Way We Live Now” compare to the Trollope novel on which it is based?

It’s been a while since I read Anthony Trollope’s fat story, so I can’t say how closely the four-part adaptation sticks to it, although much of the plot rings a bell. The novel is of course more leisurely. But this mini-series about divided loyalties and honest versus fraudulent aspiration is as finely wrought as one could wish.

The story of every character major and minor should not revolve around the person of the almost-wholly-shameless fraudster Melmotte; but that is “the way we live now.” David Suchet’s Melmotte is a glib, obtuse and bad man, but one with a certain grand vision (and gall). There’s pathos when the chickens come home to roost. We almost feel sorry for him. On the other hand, good riddance.

Another bad man is Matthew Macfayden’s Felix Carbury, who loves two women equally little. One he uses for sex, the other for money. After having seen Macfayden’s performances as the noble and reserved aristocrat in “Pride and Prejudice” (2005) and the noble and reserved spy in “Spooks” (2002-2004), I couldn’t quite accept him immediately as the semi-charming lout Felix Carbury, who in the end somehow stumbles back onto his feet despite everything, and unlike Melmotte. But disbelief was suspended quickly enough.

As for the good guys who suffer tragically, we expect that things will work out for them sooner or later precisely because they do not accept “the way we live now,” even if they have their blind spots. Roger Carbury harbors a lifelong and undying love for his cousin, Hetta Carbury (the sister of cad Felix). He may lose her to his very good friend, entrepreneur Paul Montague (duped into believing that Melmotte really intends to help him build a railroad in America). Roger (Douglas Hodge) struggles to do the right thing even when the personal cost seems unbearable. Meanwhile, Paul has to contend with an old flame from America come to England to haunt and harry him.

Melmotte’s daughter, Marie Melmotte (Shirley Henderson), one of Felix’s victims, does not at first inspire the same sympathy as stolid and stoic Roger Carbury. She appears a somewhat comical figure, petite and a bit goofy in her love-starved eagerness. One of the great pleasures of the series is watching her grow in stature. We realize (as does even Felix, briefly) that there’s much more to her than meets the eye. The transformation is entailed by the story, but it’s also a smart and wonderful performance. Marie cannot be taken seriously at all…and then she can only be taken seriously. But there’s been no cheating; we simply find out more about her.

The story moves in good pace, and never in the dull self-important way that some adaptations of classics adopt. Each of the first three segments ends on an appropriately suspenseful note.

Any complaint at all to make? Not really. I’m sure when I read the novel again I’ll find something that I wish had made it to the mini-series, or had been treated differently. But one can always make that kind of complaint about the translation of printed word to screen, and it is often an unfair one. To experience the narrative voice of Trollope, one must actually read Trollope, there is no way around that. But in its own terms, the series based on his book is perfect.