They take her in and gradually the film reveals what brought her to this state. A woman with no resources in the middle of nowhere, she lands, drenched and exhausted, at the doorstep of a home occupied by two sisters and their minister brother St. And that, especially for people not well-acquainted with the book, does hamstring the proceedings somewhat.īecause screenwriter Moira Buffini (“Tamara Drewe”) has shrewdly chosen to tell the story not chronologically, as the novel does, but through flashback, it is Wasikowska’s adult Jane whose acquaintance we make first.Ĭlearly a determined young woman, if a distraught one, Jane is shown fleeing a house in what we soon see is complete despair. Wasikowska, Tim Burton’s Alice and the daughter in “The Kids Are All Right,” looks exactly right as a heroine the author famously described as “as plain and small as myself.” Wasikowska acquits herself well here, but without a lot of access to the book’s florid recounting of her rich interior life her performance is of necessity restricted to the narrow view the world has of her. John Rivers, and Sally Hawkins of “Happy-Go-Lucky” smartly cast against type as Jane’s awful aunt, Mrs. Fairfax, Jamie Bell as the obtuse cleric St. Similar care has also gone into casting, with equally good results, including the impeccable Judi Dench as redoubtable Thornfield housekeeper Mrs. Thornfield, where much of the action takes place, is an old dark house after all, and expert cinematographer Adriano Goldman beautifully captures both the building’s candle-lit spookiness and the desolate beauty of the surrounding Derbyshire countryside.įukunaga has also invested heavily in the film’s physical details, working with his production team, including production designer Will Hughes-Jones, art director Karl Probert, set decorator Tina Jones and costume designer Michael O’Connor to create a period world where even the badminton equipment looks fearsomely authentic. One of the shrewd choices Fukunaga has made is to emphasize the natural gothic aspects of the story. His no-holds-barred style is more successful here than in his debut because the necessity of working within the boundaries of Bronte’s narrative provides just the right amount of structure to showcase his talents. But it’s not always had a director with as much of a flair for the five-alarm-fire dramatics of its plot as Cary Joji Fukunaga.Īs his first film, the Sundance success “Sin Nombre,” demonstrated, Fukunaga is an intense, visceral filmmaker with a love for melodramatic situations. Fassbender energizes not just his scenes with Mia Wasikowska’s accomplished but inevitably more pulled-back Jane but this entire film.īronte’s romantic novel of a young governess engaged in a classic struggle for equality and independence has, as noted, been filmed a lot: One count lists 18 theatrical feature versions plus nine telefilms. He’s a German-born Irish actor who is about to break big with roles in the next X-Men movie, a Steven Soderbergh thriller and “Prometheus,” Ridley Scott’s “Alien” prequel. That’s because the brooding master of Thornfield in Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel is one of literature’s archetypal romantic heroes, a complex and troubled individual who is sensitive, poetic and, as Lady Caroline Lamb famously said of Lord Byron, “mad, bad and dangerous to know.”Ī part like that is catnip for performers who can play the rogue male, and Fassbender swallows it whole. The book is called “Jane Eyre” but when it comes to its numerous movie versions, whether it’s Orson Welles in 1944 or Michael Fassbender right now, the actor playing Edward Rochester often ends up with the lion’s share of the attention.
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