Saw this today...
From Peter Shaw's Guardian review..."Cool, temperate, finely wrought, this new adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is enclosed in a crinoline of intelligent good taste."
"Australian-born Mia Wasikowska gives a self-possessed performance in the leading role: her Jane addresses the audience and her employer with the same limpid, even gaze. Wasikowska carries off the bonnets and the middle-parting and fiercely self-deprecatory references to her own plainness as only a film star can. Her north country accent, incidentally, is far superior to Anne Hathaway's. But like many Hollywood stars for whom Britspeak is not the mother tongue, this is achieved with slowness and control."
The plot is configured in flashback form. Orphaned, cruelly treated as a child, beaten and humiliated, Jane has endured a brutal boarding school run with lavish Christian hypocrisy, and finally fetches up as a governess in Thornfield Hall, a remote house in the Yorkshire Peak District, teaching a precocious little French girl, a position that showcases Jane's fluent and idiomatic command of the language. But she is to be not the mistress but rather the pupil, of sorts, to the master of the house. This is the glowering, charismatic and secretly tortured Mr Rochester, that extraordinary creation who is ancestor of Daphne Du Maurier's Maxim De Winter and second cousin to Count Dracula.
Michael Fassbender plays Rochester with a measured, observant intensity which mirrors Wasikowska's Jane. He simmers and smoulders and sometimes grins like a very sexy alligator, but never does anything as banal as flirt. Fassbender's grumpy rebukes are stonewalled by Jane's proudly polite submission, a defence she also puts up against his scary avowals of affection.
Wasikowska shows how Jane is suspicious of his gentleness and the emotions it unlocks within her. His teasing and raillery are perhaps romantically sincere, or perhaps it is all just the absent-minded petting and stroking he would give to a much-loved horse that he is nonetheless considering selling or shooting. And when Rochester arrogantly wants to know what her "tale of woe" is – because all governesses have one – Wasikowska coolly shows just how fatuous, condescending and misjudged Jane considers this remark to be. It is perhaps the moment at which she secures his respect, and all else follows from there.
In some ways, the very first encounter between Jane and Rochester, and their subsequent meeting when Jane finally realises who this man is, could be the most successful phase of their relationship. Jane is out walking in the woods; a mysterious man on horseback falls when his mount shies at the sight of her, a mishap that necessitates some physical proximity: she must put her arms around him and help him back to the horse. Later, in the house Rochester reveals himself to her and capriciously blames Jane for his injury. Fassbender and Wasikowska make this moment fateful, important, and indeed erotic.
Judi Dench provides robust support as the housekeeper, Mrs Fairfax;
Simon McBurney is reliably creepy (in a tiny role) as the hateful schoolmaster Mr Brocklehurst;
and Sally Hawkins is effective in her small role as Jane's heartless and duplicitous aunt, Mrs Reed.
All these supporting players must, of course, resign themselves to being upstaged by the central love affair but, interestingly, Jamie Bell asserts himself as Jane's gallant protector St John Rivers. Bell's St John is a potent, if minor presence in the movie. Falling secretly in love, he is as delicate and proud a subordinate to Jane as Jane is to Rochester."
I found Bell a surprise as most of his previous performances I felt were either wooden or overplayed. His passion here is controlled, cold and well-measured.
Simon McBurney is reliably creepy (in a tiny role) as the hateful schoolmaster Mr Brocklehurst;
and Sally Hawkins is effective in her small role as Jane's heartless and duplicitous aunt, Mrs Reed.
All these supporting players must, of course, resign themselves to being upstaged by the central love affair but, interestingly, Jamie Bell asserts himself as Jane's gallant protector St John Rivers. Bell's St John is a potent, if minor presence in the movie. Falling secretly in love, he is as delicate and proud a subordinate to Jane as Jane is to Rochester."
I found Bell a surprise as most of his previous performances I felt were either wooden or overplayed. His passion here is controlled, cold and well-measured.
This adaptation is balanced, crafted and beautifully acted and the moments between Jane and Rochester are electric. Both the leads couldn't have been better cast, Michael Fassbender has a magnetism that draws you to him in every role he plays and I found it the best version of this oft-told tale I've seen. It refuses to descend into schmaltz or over-blown romanticism and is better off for that.