Jane Eyre 2011 enters into its second weekend ~ BrontëBlog

After a brief respite yesterday and in view of its release tomorrow in other US cities, Jane Eyre is back to the review columns.

Rottentomatoes 82 %

Average Rating: 7.3 / 10
Reviews: 50
Fresh: 41 / Rotten: 9

Metameter 78 out of 100
based on 23 critics

New York Times: 4 stars out 5 / 57 votes

IMDB 291 IMDb users have given a weighted average vote of 7.7 / 10

Votes Percentage Rating

133 45.7% 10

35 12.0% 9

46 15.8% 8

21 7.2% 7

19 6.5% 6

7 2.4% 5

3 1.0% 4

2 0.7% 3

4 1.4% 2

21 7.2% 1

Arithmetic mean = 8.1. Median = 9

Positive

The Toronto Star gives it 4 out of 4 stars:

Fukunaga’s presence behind the camera might seem odd, given that his only other major feature was Sin Nombre, a Sundance-feted 2009 drama about illegal Mexican immigrants seeking entry to the U.S.
The mystery vanishes when you see his vision of Jane Eyre, in concert with screenwriter Moira Buffini (Tamara Drewe), which strips the Brontë novel to its dark roots. Wasikowska’s Jane is by turns every bit as desperate and determined as Paulina Gaitán’s Sayra, Sin Nombre’s female protagonist.
With cinematographer Adriano Goldman bathing the frame in muted hues of blue, black, grey and brown, this Jane Eyre seems coldly forbidding at first. Young orphan Jane (Amelia Clarkson) chafes under the loveless rule of her cruel aunt Mrs. Reed (Sally Hawkins) and scornful school headmaster Mr. Brocklehurst (Simon McBurney). [...]
The two main protagonists have been given small but significant personality makeovers: Jane is less pious and Rochester is less verbose than in the novel. Wasikowska and Fassbender do such a superb job in their roles, and match together so well, that no one need fear any disservice to Brontë’s everlasting intention: a love story where the woman is the equal to the man. (Peter Howell)

About.com gives it 4 out of 5 stars:

Everything works in Fukunaga’s adaption, only his second film since the low-budget Sin Nombre. Gorgeous cinematography (Adriano Goldman). A fantastic screenplay by Moira Buffini. And wonderful performances, from the supporting cast which includes none other than Dame Judi Dench, and the fantastic leads: Michael Fassbender as Edward Rochester and Wasikowska as Jane Eyre. The scenes between the wealthy and moody employer and his young employee sparkle. They duel and court each other with words. Contemporary speech pales compared to what these characters are able to give and receive. (Marcy Dermansky)

Creative Loafing Atlanta also gives it 4 out of 5 stars:

Jane Eyre's banter seldom feels like forward, modern-day flirtation. Throughout the film, we empathize with Jane's fraught position and her uncertainty about her intimidating but sexy employer. Despite its deliberately paced approach to some oft-filmed material, Jane Eyre effectively puts the modern moviegoer inside its heroine's metaphorical corset.
While Jane Eyre hews closely to Brontë's plot, it arrives in theaters at a time when Twilight mania has launched numerous imitators, including Beastly and Red Riding Hood. Jane Eyre's depths offer a lesson in tortured romance and gothic mood to Edward and Bella fans. The rugged, implosive Fassbender conveys Mr. Rochester's mercurial complexities, making the character sympathetic yet difficult to forgive. His moodiness isn't just a pose. (Curt Holman)

And the Dallas Observer also brings up Twilight:

Even as it romanticizes agony, Fukunaga's Jane Eyre plays as a correction to the Twilight series—in which a teenage girl idolizes mystically powerful boys—arguing that love, in its perfect state, is a meeting between equals. Using Brontë's text as the basis for an inquiry into free will versus servitude, Fukunaga mounts a subtly shaded, yet emotionally devastating examination of what it really means to choose one's own way. (Karina Longworth)

Mostly positive

Time Out Chicago gives it 4 out of 5 stars:

Wasikowska, the Alice of Tim Burton’s Wonderland, isn’t just the right age to play Jane Eyre. She has the right temperament: smart enough to hold her sharp tongue, but too proud to do it for long. Fassbender, the mercurial scene-stealer of Inglourious Basterds and Fish Tank, lends moody Mr. Rochester a tractor-beam intensity. These two evenly matched romantics do more than navigate each other’s defenses. They quietly renegotiate the terms of their rigid gender roles. Though elegantly directed by Fukunaga (Sin Nombre), with foggy gothic locales and a wealth of strong supporting performances, it’s the nervy-erotic charge between the leads that rescues this umpteenth Jane Eyre from Masterpiece Theatre anonymity. (A.A. Dowd)

The North County Times gives it 3 1/2 stars:

It's all played out under seething emotion and gray skies, the look of the film a consistent and welcome presence.
This "Jane Eyre" may or may not sit well with purists, but it appears to be as resolute in presenting its characters and setting as realistically as possible, while also using that realism as dynamically as possible. (Dan Bennett)

Roger Ebert gives it 3 1/2 stars too:

Michael Fassbender is an Irish actor who can have a threatening charm; did you see him in “Fish Tank” (2010), a quite different film about a seductive man who takes advantage of a teenage girl? Mia Wasikowska, from Australia, is a relative newcomer who must essentially carry “Jane Eyre,” and succeeds with restraint, expressing a strong moral compass. Judi Dench is firm, as a housekeeper must be firm, and observes everything, as a housekeeper must. All of the rest is decoration. Without the costumes, sets, locations, sound design and the wind and rain, gothic romance cannot exist.

ReelViews gives it 3 out of 4 stars:

The chief weakness evident in Fukunaga's adaptation is a lack of evident heat or passion in the relationship between Jane and Rochester. They go through the staid romantic motions but there's a palpable distance in their interactions, as if they remain strangers. In some ways, this may be a truer reflection of the novel's approach than can be found in sudsier versions, but it's difficult to become enraptured by the Jane/Rochester love story when one considers the relative coolness with which it is brought to the screen. This observation is not meant to impugn the performances of the leads. Both Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender are very good in their respective roles. [...]
The strengths of the film can be traced back to the novel and to the unsparing pruning shears of screenwriter Moira Buffini, who slices away what can be cut without losing the heart and soul of the source material. The actors bring their characters to life, although none of the performances will be regarded as iconic and the interaction between the leads could use a spark to ignite the simmering sexual tension between them. Jane Eyre is good enough to provide lovers of classic literature with a reason to venture to theaters without being subjected to a salacious or demeaning adaptation. However, the film's stately approach, even with its horror overtones, is unlikely to win new converts to the Jane Eyre fan club, and there is nothing so definitive about the production that it will dissuade future filmmakers from bringing their interpretations to the screen. (James Berardinelli)

Negative

The San Diego Reader gives it only 2 stars:

Cary Fukunaga directed in the BBC/PBS tradition of perfect costumes, grand homes rich in ancestry, and dialogue such as, “On these distant horizons you will find all manner of men.” There is an attempt to be faithful to a classic novel that is also flamboyant melodrama (if you love Jane Eyre, you probably love soap opera). Fukunaga and adapter Moira Buffini are like grad students cramming for finals. They structure the story so that Jane’s dismal youth, her time at Rochester’s gloomy Thornfield Hall (actually Haddon Hall in Derbyshire), and the scenes when she finds uneasy solace from a young minister tend to jam and elbow each other rather clumsily. [...]
The hard sell is Mia Wasikowska. Fine in Alice in Wonderland and The Kids Are All Right, Wasikowska is often simply unfathomable as plain-pretty Jane. She survives, without evident neurosis, a girlhood that might have caused psychosis. Primly fitted into tight, homely outfits, she could almost be starring in Little House on the Moors. Jane is such a totem of saintly, virginal endurance that her growing interest in Rochester comes off like a challenge project at a tough finishing school. The truth is, she’s a little dull. (David Elliott)

Just for the record: we 'love Jane Eyre' but we definitely don't 'love sopa opera'.

The Setonian analyses the adaptation from a more scholarly point of view:

So what exactly does it take to make a film like "Jane Eyre" a success? Is it complete orthodoxy to the text, a thoughtful interpretation or a combination of the two?
Karen Gevirtz, an English professor at Seton Hall, said that an adaptation of a story like "Jane Eyre" calls for deep exploration that goes beyond the words themselves.
"It requires really careful reading and thinking, reading and thinking that attends to what is in the text and not just to what we want the text to say for us as viewers, a culture, a film director, a screenplay adaptor or a movie studio," she said. "Reading in the expectation that something will speak in a certain way or on a certain subject usually gets us into trouble."
It would be impossible to create a film that includes each intricate detail that makes the novel "Jane Eyre" such a masterpiece, but Fukunaga seems to have paid the type of close attention to the text that Gevirtz recommends. (Emily Lake)

We wholeheartedly agree with Ms Gevirtz.

HollywoodChicago interviews Mia Wasikowska and Cary Fukunaga:

HollywoodChicago.com: Do you see a through line between Alice, Joni from “The Kids Are All Right” and Jane?
Wasikowska: Yeah, I’m sure there is definite connections. I see them all as different characters, but in terms of Alice and Jane, who are from a similar time period, they both are modern characters for their time. That is why, I think, they are so beloved and continue to be explored. There is a complexity to them, they have a lot of layers, a lot of different things going on. Like on the film “That Evening Sun,” that was something I hadn’t done before. I like doing things that challenge me or what I haven’t done before. [...]
HollywoodChicago.com: The screenwriter used a flashback technique by starting at a point further into the novel. How did that approach help you or free you as the director of the narrative?
Cary Fukunaga: What it does, in a very elegant way, is allow you to tackle the third part of that novel, which is often a difficult narrative hump to get over. By peppering it about the course of the film, you can stay faithful to the novel and actually show that part of the story, which is often cut in other versions or amalgamated into other characters. You can remain faithful to it and still tell a compelling story with a structure that starts out with a mystery and hopefully keeps you engaged all the way through.
HollywoodChicago.com: With that structure, there seemed to be more focus on that latter part of the novel, which takes place with St. John Rivers [Jamie Bell] and his sisters. How did that figure in the overall story?
Fukunaga: There is a lot of coincidence in the novel that gets you to the end. But what is really important is how you define Jane. This is her story and she needs to make decisions, and in this case she is given an opportunity, once we establish that relationship with St. John Rivers, to decide if she wants a fate with his sisters, or a fate in India married to him or to return to Edward Rochester. It’s more faithful to the novel and makes her much more interesting, and a lot of coincidences brings her to the end. That choice defines who she is. [...]
HollywoodChicago.com: What surprised you about the novel Jane Eyre when you were visiting it in preparation for taking on the ‘bringing to life’ of the classic characters?
Fukunaga: My style of filmmaking right now is that it should feel authentic, as if it’s happening now. Therefore, language comes into play, because the language of Bronte’s time is so specific. Actual words, adjectives and adverbs are so specific then they are now, although we recognize the words, they are very rarely utilized the way that they are in Jane Eyre. To make that sound natural is a challenge for anyone. There was a lot of distilling, to find a balance between the literary version of what Bronte is saying and what would the actual dialogue version be. And that went back and forth, that wasn’t in the first version of the script. It also came out in prep and pre-production, Mia would have sections of the book underlined…
Wasikowska: There was a lot of translating, like you read the scenes and the language of the time is so poetic and elaborate, and we don’t use that language anymore. So a lot of it we would go through and ask, ‘what does this mean?’ What are they talking about? So a lot of it was decoding another language. Once we understood the meaning of it, we could own it a bit more. [...]
HollywoodChicago.com: How do you deal with the spooky elements of the story, for example, the surprise that Thornfield Manor contains?
Fukunaga: My interpretation of the novel is that it’s a spooky story. It’s the kind of story that people would read by the fireplace and been spooked about. That needs to be there in the story, and it’s difficult managing that and the romance parts. They are very different emotions. It becomes more of a tone than a genre, and that’s how I approached it. (PatrickMcD)