The best Jane yet...

Charlotte Bronte's 1847 novel Jane Eyre has been filmed 16 times and there have been 10 television versions, to say nothing of an opera and a ballet. You might imagine that there are no fresh surprises or interesting insights to be had from this classic novel, but this new film version you will prove you wrong.

It is my opinion that with Japanese-American director Cary Fukunaga at the helm and an Australian actress, Mia Wasikowska, in the lead role, this new Jane Eyre is the best film version of the book we have yet seen - a passionate, intimate drama that speaks directly and cogently to a modern audience.

This is no reverential exhumation of a classic novel that has been wheeled out for students and old-fogey audiences. This version of Jane Eyre is bold and passionate, and the emotions on screen are raw and real. There is no overdressed period glamour or mawkish Victorian romance to stifle the novel's powerful feminist theme.

Moira Buffini's taut, pared-down screenplay focuses tightly on Jane (Wasikowska), a woman who has no money or social status, but who is intelligent and brave enough to believe that women need not become just a useful tool in the social apparatus of male domination and power of that age.

Bronte and her sisters, Anne and Emily, were very much aware of those limitations. They were forced to publish their novels, all of which gained international success, under a male pseudonym because publishers at the time refused to print books written by women.

Most of the previous film versions of Jane Eyre have taken a soft option, indulging in the Masterpiece Theatre treatment, with opulent decor and romantic melodrama that lulls complacent audiences into believe that they are imbibing "culture".

The story is filled with secrets and revelations, but Fukunaga keeps his focus trained on Jane as she confronts both her sexuality and her determination to live her life on her own terms.

She will not be diminished by the men who expect her, indeed all women, to be humble, obedient and grateful. They are the curate St John Rivers (Jamie Bell), and Edward Rochester (Michael Fassbender), who owns the old mansion on the bleak moors where Jane is sent to live.

Jane is hired to be governess to Rochester's daughter Adele (Romy Moore). Her job is to educate her ward under the supervision of the housekeeper, Mrs Fairfax, played with meticulous grace and intelligence by Judi Dench.

At first Rochester treats Jane with sarcastic contempt.





He is seldom home but when he is, he's a restless, somewhat tormented man. But he recognises something strong and whole in Jane.

He falls in love with her, against his better judgment, because he knows of several reasons why a marriage to Jane will be tainted from the start. Nonetheless, he proposes to Jane, and that's when the tragic secrets can no longer be concealed and disaster ensues.

Fukunaga deals deftly with the novel's dark secrets, which lend a touch of horror for viewers who are not familiar with the story. He does so by breaking up the novel's time-line into segments that enable him to create a sense of mystery without losing sight of Jane's emotional journey.

Adriano Goldman's exquisite photography complements the direction by finding flinty poetry in the rocks and empty spaces on the moors, under bleak grey skies. The same is true of Dario Marianelli's opulent music. The costumes created by Michael Connor are exquisite, exactly true to the period, but perfectly woven into the film's simple design.

Technically speaking, the film is beautiful, but the actors make it come alive in all its emotional complexity.

Best of all, Fukunaga uses Bronte's own words to fine effect. There is a speech that Jane makes to Rochester in which she asserts her sense of self in words that would have been scandalous in 1847 if a woman had spoken them to a man: "Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you - and full as much heart! I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will."

Those words were written in 1847, but they retain their full force today, and that's what makes this version of Jane Eyre so impressive.


The Source