Jane Eyre (2011)

Posted by Shan Lee on Aug 31, 2011 in Film | 0 comments

8/10 – A Rare, Unearthly Thing

Starring Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Judi Dench and Jamie Bell

Directed by Cary Fukunaga

Based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë

Stoic orphan girl Jane (Mia Wasikowska) endures a harsh childhood in her aunt’s household. Discarded at an austere orphanage, she navigates many travails and deprivations. Jane rises to become a governess in Mr. Rochester’s home where she develops a bond with her brooding and enigmatic employer (Michael Fassbender). Their blossoming romance encounters a wretched twist when a demon from his past rears its ugly head.

This film, the latest of so very many screen adaptations of Charlotte Brontë’s beloved story; this film is a tone poem. Wistful, ardent and beautifully photographed. It is a wholly-faithful rendition of Jane’s narrative, while simultaneously singing a serenade to the very core of what Jane represents.

The more literal film adaptations of Jane Eyre always replicate the plot points exactly, and their dialogue is almost always entirely derived from the original text. You can practically recite along with every iteration of Jane and Rochester as they mouth the same passionate speeches; the same turns of phrase. The story is compelling, iconic. That’s why it resonates, even after countless repetitions.

But Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre also manages that rarest of feats; it channels the restless spirit that drives Brontë’s narrative. As you read the novel, written from Jane’s perspective, you adopt Jane’s thought processes, you walk in her skin. It is Jane’s voice that tells the story; it is Jane’s will that suffuses the reader. By itself, the plot is the stuff of a thousand throwaway bodice-rippers, but it is the quiet dignity of Bronte’s original text that makes Jane such a compelling heroine. Despite all the cultural and socioeconomic limitations that restrict her choices and actions, Jane is a thinking, feeling human being, not an inert object in a corset, carefully costumed and photographed on a lavish period film set. And this film version of Jane Eyre gets that.

Rather like Jane herself, the film is quiet, full of silent observation and it conveys the spirit of the story without needing to mouth the exact words. It follows Jane wordlessly as she explores Thornfield, lost in her own thoughts, with that extraordinary, mournful violin score. There is a fantastic scene where the ladies of the house have sat down to a quiet, civilized lunch, but are disrupted by the distant sounds of Mr. Rochester playing a jaunty tune on the piano, then yelling incoherently, and finally firing a shotgun at some unseen target, all within the space of 20 seconds. It so economically conveys the capricious ill-humor of Mr. Rochester, and the pall it casts on his household.

Judi Dench, cast against type as simpering housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax, is wonderful but inadvertently funny whenever she tries unsuccessfully to convince us that she is a mild old biddy who would take Mr. Rochester’s stinging barbs without slapping him upside the head. Jamie Bell’s St. John Rivers and Sally Hawkins’ Mrs. Reed are much-abbreviated but appropriately glacial. Casualties of the runtime limitations of a feature film. The miniseries format, such as the most recent BBC oeuvre with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens, has enough time to flesh out all the characters from the book. Fukunaga economizes by hinting at a more complex backstory instead of cramming the film with the less essential scenes and speeches. Instead of the linear unfolding of the tale, the film opens with the final chapters; a bedraggled and distraught Jane arriving at Moor House, recollecting the series of events that led her there.

Mia Wasikowska’s Jane carries the film. She is all unsmiling and matter-of-fact on the surface, with a delightful hint of insolence in her early conversations with Rochester, at times almost seeming to bait him. And he, fascinated by her lack of obsequiousness, smolders dangerously like a snake within the thrall of a mousy snake charmer. Fassbender is suitably vital and ferocious, but his troubled Rochester lacks the depth of Wasikowska’s subtle performance, which conveys a hidden world under the placid surface. However, their Jane and Rochester have a wonderful, wordless screen chemistry.

Reader, I loved it.