Film: Jane Eyre

Director: Cary Fukunaga
Genre: Drama
Source: UK/USA (2011)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Blu-Ray
Grade: A-

Jane Eyre is shot with a spareness and simplicity of an indie film with a higher budget, and I don't mean that in a bad way. Fukunaga uses washed out and desaturated colors to evoke the emptiness -even the coldness--of Jane's life that contrasts nicely with the blossoming flowers of her later romance with Rochester. The novel Jane Eyre was one of those classic novels that surprised me in how much I liked it (a feeling I'm currently experiencing again while reading Moby Dick for the first time) and I think the film does an excellent job capturing the feel of the Victorian book in a very modern way. This doesn't look like your typical staid British period piece. Fukunaga uses handheld cameras to create a feeling of intimacy, he cuts sound to show emotion, he uses close-up to create meaning. The visual appeal of this film was really heightened by the blu-ray, and it was a sparse but beautiful film to look at.

It was also helped a lot by a trio of great actors in key roles: Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax, Mia Wasikowska as Jane, and the always great Michael Fassbender as Rochester. These three inhabited their roles effortlessly, and while I was worried about Waskiowska at first, she held her own admirably with the two great Brits. Her conversations with Rochester, her wit, her honesty, made their growing love easy to understand. She managed to be both completely charming and completely appropriate as a servant in the same breath. It helps that she is attractive but not distractingly beautiful, as it makes Jane's appeal understandable but not over-stated.

My only problem with the film was how they presented the revelation of "what's really  happening at Thornfield." It seemed very anti-climactic, and though I may be overly influenced by my reading as an English scholar (where "the madwoman in the attic" is such an essential trope there are even key books written about the social, cultural, and moral implications of the hidden wife in 19th century life) that somehow that scene felt flat and not significant enough. 

That said, the film was a pleasure. The story is quintessentially Victorian, but it still has great impact today.

Alternate Film Title: "Your Life Sucks But Everybody Loves You"