Jane Eyre conquers the US - Part II

More US articles about the new BBC production of Jane Eyre (to be added to the ones posted before).

Alessandra Stanley in The New York Times thinks that this version is quite faithful to the book, but no specially memorable:

“Jane Eyre” may not be the first feminist novel, but it is certainly one of the most enduring. There have been at least 20 movie and television versions of Charlotte Brontë’s gothic love story, even more than of “Emma” or “Pride and Prejudice.” (...)

The newest version is perhaps a little steamier. At one point Jane (Ruth Wilson) and Edward Rochester (Toby Stephens) lie on a bed and kiss (they remain dressed), and the mad wife, Bertha (Claudia Coulter), a half-Creole from the West Indies, is shown in a flashback committing strenuous adultery. As befits a Victorian immorality tale, however, the illicit love affair between the governess and the man she calls “master” is more passionate in word and smoldering glance than in deed.

The “Jane Eyre” of today takes few liberties with characters, plot or language. Usually classics are revered in the classroom and mauled by Hollywood: “Jane Eyre” is treated with kid gloves in movies and is under constant critical review by scholars and writers. (...)

Mr. Stephens is a passionate, tormented Rochester, but not a very imposing one. The actor has chiseled, soap-opera-star features that clash with Brontë’s descriptions. Mr. Rochester glowers a lot and gallops broodingly on horseback, but in the rare moments when the master of Thornfield is in a good mood, he seems a lot like Hugh Grant in “Love Actually.” (...)

No director seems able to choose a genuinely plain actress to play the plain governess; be it Ms. Fontaine, Susannah York in 1970 or Charlotte Gainsbourg in 1996, Jane is portrayed by a pretty actress pretending to be nondescript. Ms. Wilson, who has big blue eyes and a pillowy upper lip, is just as much an impostor, which seems unnecessary in the age of “Ugly Betty.” But she nevertheless does justice to Jane’s pallor and grave, pensive dignity.

And the film, much of which was shot on location in Derbyshire, England, does justice to the novel’s spooky gothic undertones. The childhood Jane (Georgie Henley) is scary-looking, not cute, and her defiance does seem out of place in her aunt’s strict and repressed household. When asked what she should do to avoid being sent to hell, Jane thinks a little and replies, “I must keep in good health and not die.” (...)

“Jane Eyre” is not an inspired reinterpretation; it’s another respectful, faithful telling of a well-known tale. And that is in itself a tribute to Brontë, who wrote a novel so powerful and absorbing that no filmmaker dares tamper with it.

Dennis Moore in USA Today is more thrilled with the new adaptation, specially with Ruth Wilson:

Her employer suspects there's a bit of the witch about Jane Eyre. There's no doubt that Masterpiece Theatre's production of Jane Eyre is bewitching as well.

Love, betrayal, despair, redemption, reconciliation. All of the elements expected of any epic love story are included. The distinction here: The story is splendidly retold. (...)

The lean scripting (even at four hours the program can't cover every one of Brontë's plot details), the expeditious pacing and the interaction among the actors are first-class, if not as brilliant as the more ambitious and magnificent Bleak House from last season. Not surprisingly, both BBC productions were directed by Susanna White.

In one pivotal encounter with Rochester, Jane describes herself as plain, obscure and little. Though the actress who portrays her, Ruth Wilson, may be obscure — she has appeared in only one other television role in Britain — she is far from plain and little. Wilson is lovely, often luminous (maybe even too much so for the character as Brontë wrote her). And her dexterous movement from apprehension to joy, heartbreak and back to blessed contentment portends big success.

Darker, more tempestuous emotions fall to Toby Stephens as Rochester. With him, Jane Eyre easily could collapse into melodrama, but his mastery of the role represents the program's balance between passion and prudence.

In an earlier time, Jane Eyre might have been called a "woman's picture." But all who wish to immerse themselves in grand storytelling should settle in and let Jane beguile them.

Barry Garron in The Hollywood Reporter adds:

So here's the good news: The new adaptation written by Sandy Welch and directed by Susanna White doesn't add new colors to Bronte's romantic novel. Rather, it brings out all the shades and hues of the original portrait, restoring it to its full glory.

But wait. The news gets better. The careful restoration applies not only to the characters but also to the breathtaking cinematography. Scene after scene transports viewers across time and space to a place made vivid and real. By doing all this, the robust, two-part, four-hour "Masterpiece Theatre" program raises the bar for future "Jane Eyre" productions to a level that will not be easily hurdled.

The key to getting this story right is, first and foremost, finding the right Jane. This was accomplished with the discovery of newcomer Ruth Wilson, who acts as if she was born to play the part. Neither a dazzling beauty nor plain, Wilson exudes confidence. As Jane, she has to reveal her inner emotions without expressing them outwardly, which she does effortlessly. On top of all that, Wilson has a Mona Lisa smile, a slightly mysterious glow, that makes her a riveting presence. White's direction brings out all of those qualities, drawing us in to the enigma of Jane as much as to the story itself. (...)

All the while, White advances the story with artistic camera angles, appropriate lighting and a keen eye for detail.

Robert Lloyd in Los Angeles Times is well informed:

Given that most every screen translation leaves out much and invents at least a little, it's probably best to watch any "Jane Eyre" with no knowledge of the source — or no memory of it, anyway — so as to be surprised, say, when Mr. Rochester rides up out of the mist, and wonder just what made those noises in the hallway, and believe that Jane might possibly go off to India (unaccountably changed here to Africa) with St. John Rivers instead of heading back to Thornfield Hall.

There is the usual quorum of elisions, compressions, rearrangements and additions. White and Welch fairly race through Jane's early years under her hateful aunt, Mrs. Reed (the usually fetching Tara Fitzgerald, hardly recognizable), and at the Lowood School, spending just enough time there to establish that Jane was a lively, unconventional little girl with much to overcome. (Ugly relations, cold institution — we know the shorthand by now.)

All haste is made to get Jane to Rochester and their will-she-won't-he whirlings.

A more than usually steamy "Jane Eyre," it seems to have been made especially to appeal to viewers whose week peaks with "Grey's Anatomy." There is a lot of Mr. Rochester in Dr. McDreamy. And yet, despite these passages, the production overall comes off as a little dry and dutiful.

Toby Stephens, (...)it is not entirely his fault that his Rochester seems at times merely cranky and perverse rather than storm-tossed and tortured; Brontë must bear some of the blame. (...) Ruth Wilson, still fresh enough to be called a "newcomer," follows in that tradition — she even gets a Miss Jones Who Is Beautiful Without Her Glasses moment as, in the first flush of requited love, she literally lets her hair down.

Wilson does well portraying Jane's passionate nature and her hard-won discipline. The character is sufficiently self-determining, within the possibilities of her time, to merit the book's proto-feminist reputation — a "resolute, wild, free thing," she calls herself — but it is also a great-great-great-grandmother of the modern bodice ripper (dark master, humble governess). Jane may be plain, but she winds up not just with a man, but a choice of them — which is doubtless what makes this story so perennially attractive to filmmakers. (Brontë's darker, and greater, novel "Villette" has been filmed, as far as I can make out, only once.)

Beneath all its subtleties and discourse, it's Cinderella back again: All the soot in the world can't hide a born princess.

Categories: In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV