Jane Eyre 2011. US Reviews (I) ~ BrontëBlog

New reviews of the film: (UPDATED)

Positive Reviews:

Rolling Stone (3 out of 4 stars)

Director Cary Joji Fukunaga (Sin Nombre) and screenwriter Moira Buffini (Tamara Drewe) have deftly brought out Brontë's gothic terrors. And they've wisely cast it young.
The splendid Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska, 21, is best known for playing the lead in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. And she brings innocence and carnal curiosity to the role of Jane, a teen orphan who doesn't know what to expect when she comes to scary-gloomy Thornfield Hall to care for the young ward of Mr. Edward Rochester (Michael Fassbender). (...)
Wasikowska and Fassbender make a pair of ravishing romantics, giving the movie unexpected sizzle. Repressed sexuality will do it every time. Purists will object to abridgments of the book. But Fukunaga, son of a Japanese father and a Swedish mother, is a filmmaker to watch. He has reanimated a classic for a new generation, letting Jane Eyre resonate with terror and tenderness. (Peter Travers)

Time Magazine:

This remake hits the jackpot with Wasikowska (pronounced VashiKOVska) and, not far behind, Fassbender. In Hunger, Fish Tank and Inglourious Basterds German-Irish actor played widely different characters unified only by the commitment he invested in them. As Rochester he's just as ferocious, practically feral, within brooding distance of Daniel Day-Lewis but sporting the matinee-idol looks and smolder of the young Christopher Plummer. His conversations with Jane — the film's most potent scenes — register as both the couple's courtship and Rochester's therapy. The man needs healing, and will come to Jane for it, even if it ruins them both.
Wasikowska, the young Australian who made a powerful impression as the suicidal teen gymnast in season one of HBO's In Treatment, also played one of the children in The Kids Are All Right. More pertinently, she was Alice in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, where she responded to each surreal eminence with a surprising lack of surprise. Her Jane must face horrors, not wonders, but Wasikowska's face is again a blank slate on which we can write a rich history of the young women she plays. Playing the role with almost no makeup, to concentrate the viewer's attention on her watchfulness, she is less the sum of what she looks like than the way she looks at the world; she is Jane Eye. (Richard Corliss)

The New Yorker:

Charlotte Brontë’s novel “Jane Eyre” is so affecting that you could stage it with shadow puppets in Greek and it would still have an emotional impact. The latest version—with Mia Wasikowska as Jane and Michael Fassbender as Rochester—is more in the feminist line, though with gothic touches. The director, Cary Fukunaga, frames the story not just with his camera but with subdued natural lighting: dreary outdoors and candlelit interiors. Yet this austere production has fire enough; it captures the elemental Brontë passions. (David Denby)

FilmCritic: (3.5 out of 5 stars)

A huge step forward from the director's middling, beautifully shot border-crossing debut, Sin Nombre, Jane Eyre puts far more stress on Fukunaga's exquisite sense of composition and working relationship with actors. It also thankfully sees him working from a script by Ms. Buffini, who did solid work adapting Tamara Drewe for Stephen Frears, which helps skim away many of the heavy-handed allegories and histrionic liberal handwringing that plagued Fukunaga's first film. (...)
Fassbender is as stunning as ever, adding a lethal aggression and sexuality to Rochester, a character measured in sarcastic wit, knowledge, and silence in Hurt's earlier interpretation. As for Wasikowska, so funny and charming in The Kids Are All Right, she gives another wonderful, though wholly different, performance as Jane, sporting rhythmic delivery and simple, precise physicality. Their supporting cast matches the passionate lead turns, an essential ingredient in preparing period costume dramas as well-tread and dependent on manners as Jane Eyre or any popular Austen novel. But in the case of this latest incarnation, a rare balance has been struck between the dramatic choices and structure that delineate adaptations of Brontë's work, and the gentle, unique style of the director's vision. (Chris Cabin)

Boxoffice Magazine (3.5 out of 5 stars):

In tackling Brontë's much-filmed novel, American Fukunaga couldn't have moved further from the trials of the Central American immigrants that occupied his first feature, 2009's Sin Nombre. Jane Eyre is the type of high-falutin' costume fare one expects to see on viewer-supported television or in theaters during the Oscar season. While it's hard to imagine a Jane Eyre in which the central conflict is less cultural or socioeconomic, Fukunaga's interpretation is concerned more with finding one's place in the world emotionally, spiritually and psychically, which, because it's first and foremost a great romance, means falling in love. (...)
Lavish and feverish at times, Jane Eyre flirts with becoming unhinged but never approaches true hysteria. It's never boring, but just when you think it will take off and morph into something unusual and subversive, Fukunaga makes a conventional choice that is both reassuring and slightly disappointing. Adriano Goldman's impatient cinematography has its dazzling moments but not a lot of consistency. On the plus side, this underscores the atmospherics and both Jane and Rochester's moodiness; on the down side, it makes certain choices feel obligatory. (John P. McCarthy)

Reel Talk:

Fassbender cannot be faulted for falling shy of Welles’s egocentric charisma; but it is really Wasikowska’s pale, slight heroine who carries the centerpiece burden. Proto-feminist or merely her own instinctive person, withholding or giving with equal resolve, her restrained Jane is among those to remember. (Donald Levit)

The Epoch Times and Slate seem to contradict the big majority of reviewers we have read on the Gothic and dark aspects of the film:

Unlike other notable film takes, Fukunaga seems to deliberately downplay the Gothic aspects of the story. Frankly, his Thornfield looks almost cozy (but earns kudos for art director Karl Probert and set decorator Tina Jones). While not necessarily right or wrong, it gives the film a romantic character distinct from that of the dank-looking classic 1944 version starring Orson Welles.(...)
Capitalizing on the strength of its two leads, Fukunaga’s adaption plays like Brontë for Jane Austen readers. The results are thoroughly engaging. Artfully crafted and well paced, the film is one of the better English literary period dramas to hit screens in a number of years. (Joe Bendel)

Fukunaga's vision of Jane Eyre is refreshingly un-Gothic. Though all the story elements are in place for a thunder-on-the-moors-style gloomfest (and though there are, in fact, several thunderstorms on moors), this film is low on Romantic atmospherics and flooded with natural light. The cinematography by Adriano Goldman recalls the look of Jane Campion's Bright Star, another literary love story that incorporated nature not just as a pretty backdrop but as a thematic element; here, the lead couple's volatile relationship seems inextricably tied to the changing landscape around them. This Jane Eyre is as lucid and matter-of-fact as a film can be whose story hinges on brooding gentlemen with secrets and muffled screams from the attic. (...)
Moira Buffini's script errs on the side of being too spare at times--these are characters of such few words that their motivations can seem opaque. But leaving the odd blank for the viewer to fill in was more merciful than cramming every available space with verbiage, incidental music or, worse, voiceover. Wasikowska is the revelation here--her wary, intelligent face tells us volumes about this abused but unbowed young woman. But the small roles are also beautifully cast: Jamie Bell as the solemn young curate, Judi Dench as Rochester's loyal housekeeper, Sally Hawkins as Jane's vain, greedy, ultimately pitiable aunt. (Dana Stevens)

CinemaBlend (4.5 out of 5 stars):

Around every corner in Jane Eyre there's something delectable, whether the impeccable supporting performances-- Hawkins is amazing and cruel in her brief scenes, Imogen Poots perfectly snooty as a rich Mrs. Rochester wannabe-- the saturated and moody photography from Adriano Goldman or Dario Marianelli's spare, evocative score. Fukunaga showed skill with his remarkable debut feature Sin Nombre, but Bronte's words have brought him new emotional depth, along with two actors perfectly suited to their inscrutable characters. Even those who think themselves allergic to period pieces shouldn't deny Jane Eyre's enigmatic pull. (Katey Rich)

Los Angeles Times:

One of the shrewd choices Fukunaga has made is to emphasize the natural gothic aspects of the story. Thornfield, where much of the action takes place, is an old dark house after all, and expert cinematographer Adriano Goldman beautifully captures both the building's candle-lit spookiness and the desolate beauty of the surrounding Derbyshire countryside. (...)
Someone who wants distraction from "the mire of my thoughts," Rochester is visibly energized by the spirited give-and-take conversations he has with Jane. With Fassbender's charisma igniting his co-star as well as himself, these sparring interchanges, both captivating and entertaining, are where this "Jane Eyre" finally catches fire. (Kenneth Turan)

New York Times:

Reader, I liked it. This “Jane Eyre,” energetically directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (“Sin Nombre”) from a smart, trim script by Moira Buffini (“Tamara Drewe”), is a splendid example of how to tackle the daunting duty of turning a beloved work of classic literature into a movie. Neither a radical updating nor a stiff exercise in middlebrow cultural respectability, Mr. Fukunaga’s film tells its venerable tale with lively vigor and an astute sense of emotional detail. (A.O. Scott)

NPR:

Cary Fukunaga's feverishly soulful remake of the multiply remade Jane Eyre rises to most challenges — not the least of which is making Mia Wasikowska, a golden child of current cinema, look homely. (Ella Taylor)

New York Post (3 out 4 stars):

But there is much to appreciate in the more sober approach by Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini ("Tamara Drewe," one of the most underrated movies of 2010). They frame the story between flashbacks as Jane arrives at the home of St. John Rivers (Jamie Bell) after the most shocking revelations at Thornfield Hall.(...)
This latest, well-acted telling of "Jane Eyre" takes place largely indoors, but there are some striking views of Jane on moors that do not contain soundstage fog. After 160 years, this is a story that still grips the heart and the mind. (Lou Lumenick)

Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy (Indiewire):

Can a film be true to a classic literary source and still seem fresh? The answer is yes, and the proof is the new adaptation of Jane Eyre. (...)
[Mia Wasikowska] isn’t one for histrionics, yet we understand her subtle shifts of emotion at every turn; that’s screen acting at its finest. (...)
I suspect that no screen adaptation could ever completely satisfy Brontë purists, but this beautifully wrought film may do the next best thing: it just might inspire people to seek out the novel.

Bloomberg (3 stars):

The latest version, from director Cary Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini, is a worthy addition that’s handsomely shot, crisply acted and cleverly constructed.(...)
This probably won’t be the last “Jane Eyre” movie, but it’s one of the best. (Rick Warner)

Salon:

In reframing one of the most read but least understood of all English novels as a story about two lonely people against an isolated landscape -- a story closer to a John Ford western than to a conventional, BBC-style presentation of Victorian England -- the young American director Cary Joji Fukunaga has very likely surpassed all previous cinematic versions of "Jane Eyre." That's a matter of taste, of course, and I'm not disrespecting the numerous good-to-excellent TV adaptations of Charlotte Brontë's novel, which go back to the '50s and include the superb 2006 version starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens.
But Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini (a prominent British playwright who also wrote the script for Stephen Frears' undervalued "Tamara Drewe") have grasped that cinema is not television, and that just because a famous book contains a lot of words, you don't need to fill up the movie with them. When ramrod-straight governess Jane Eyre (Mia Wasikowska) and her moody employer, Edward Fairfax Rochester (Michael Fassbender), do speak, the lines are rich and resonant with the idiosyncrasy of 19th-century English speech. I haven't gone back to check, but I'm pretty sure Buffini is pulling lines straight out of Brontë.(...)
"Jane Eyre" is a passionate, impossible love story, one of the most romantic ever told. But it's also a cold, wild story about destruction, madness and loss, and this movie captures its divided spirit like none before. (Andrew O'Hehir)

USA Today (3.5 out of four stars):

In its superbly spare execution, the newest adaptation of Jane Eyre is both faithful to Charlotte Brontë's classic and distinctively original.
It's a grittier and more subtle take, with handsome cinematic flourishes and an intriguing storytelling approach. The talented cast, spectacular cinematography and spot-on production design is guided by the sure hand of director Cary Joji Fukunaga. (...)
What is lacking is a sense of their burgeoning passion.
Wasikowska delivers her lines knowingly. But something doesn't catch fire in her modulated scenes with Fassbender's brooding Rochester, the man who hires her as a governess to his young French ward.
The look of this version may be the finest of the 27 Jane Eyre film and television re-tellings. Close-ups, beautifully framed, capture nuance and detail while muted milky tones give the windswept moors a compellingly desolate quality. (Claudia Puig)

Movieline:

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre has had all sorts of life rafts tossed in its direction, including countless mini-series and a 1996 Franco Zeffirelli version (with William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg). But this latest Jane Eyre — directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, who made his feature debut in 2009 with the illegal-immigration drama Sin Nombre — is the one that reminds us what a visceral experience reading a classic can be: Even as Fukunaga honors the book’s quintessential Englishness — it opens with our heroine feverishly wandering the moors, as if the only sure thing were the native soil beneath her feet — he also distills the raw animal nature that drives it. When the movie’s troubled, secretive hero says of the meek (and very young) governess who has charmed him, “I’m sure she’d regenerate me with a vengeance,” you know he’s talking about more than her skill at fixing him a nice cup of tea. (...)
Shot by Adriano Goldman, the picture has a strong sense of place: You can almost smell the dense mossiness of the misty countryside or the evanescent sweetness of blossoming orchards, and the movie’s interiors, hung with dense velvets or lit by cozy fires, are as claustrophobic or as welcoming as they need to be. Fukunaga and Buffini have taken some liberties with the book’s structure, plucking out a few of its key elements and reassembling them into flashbacks and flash-forwards. But their choices are never jarring, and they may even even heighten the mystery for those lucky ones who have no idea where the story is headed. (...)
One of the marvels of this Jane Eyre is its casting: Wasikowska’s Jane, in her simple dresses and with her hair coiled modestly at the nape of her neck, still looks like a young girl. Fassbender, on the other hand, is all man, a feral being who looks as if he could swallow her whole. Sex is threatening, as Brontë knew, and Wasikowska and Fassbender make this particular dance look exceedingly dangerous. (...) Jane Eyre, as Brontë wrote her, is a small girl who makes for a big story. Wasikowska steps easily and naturally into those little footprints stamped out some 160 years ago. In this Jane Eyre, it seems as if they were made only yesterday. (Stephanie Zacharek)

Wall Street Journal:

Soon after the fevered opening of this latest "Jane Eyre," the far-off figure of the heroine, unmoored on the moors, stands at a crossroads that is hardly more than a crosspaths—four corners faintly traced in one of the film's many understated yet transfixing vistas. Almost everything about Cary Fukunaga's version of the Charlotte Brontë romance is understated yet transfixing, mainly—although far from exclusively—because of Mia Wasikowska's presence in the title role. She embodies Jane's most endearing qualities—courage, passion, devotion, unadorned beauty—but not for a moment the moist poignance that many of the umpteen previous versions have inflicted on her. (Eighteen feature films, to be exact, and nine TV versions.) This Jane meets the world and everyone in it with a rock-solid sense of herself that can only be shaken by love. (...)
But then the work of Mr. Fukunaga—who directed from a strong adaptation by Moira Buffini—is impressive too. (...) He and Ms. Buffini have heightened the drama of their source material in two ways, both successful. They've rearranged the narrative by starting with Jane's heartsick flight from Thornfield Hall, by spending useful time on her usually scanted encounter with St. John Rivers (Jamie Bell) and his family, and by playing, as powerful flashbacks, her harsh childhood as an orphan as well as her time as a governess at Thornfield. The film also has somber fun with Thornfield as a haunted house of alarming sounds and squeaking timbers.
To prove that I didn't embrace "Jane Eyre" uncritically, I'll note that pulses were taken in the 19th century by checking the wrist, not the carotid artery as shown here, and I'll register an objection to the use of surround sound to create squeaking timbers at the back of the theater. This lovely film surrounds us without it. (Joe Morgenstern)

The Playlist (A-):

When tasked with reimagining Charlotte Brontë‘s immortal “Jane Eyre,” which seems to be adapted somewhere, by someone, every couple of years, some key decisions must be made. The impulse that seems to have seized director Cary Fukunaga was to emphasize the gothic horror elements of the story, while making the narrative more structurally complex, allowing for more of Jane’s back story to slip into the movie (it’s the stuff most commonly left out of the multitude of adaptations).
These decisions could have been disastrous, since the source material is taken so seriously by literary types the world over. (A gamble is still a gamble, even if your characters are wearing frilly dresses.) Thankfully, Fukunaga has pulled off something miraculous – a tale draped in gothic horror that’s actually, you know, haunting. Under his skilled direction (and the input of his collaborators), he’s crafted a “Jane Eyre” that feels both classic and utterly fresh. (...)
If the movie is an emotional rollercoaster, then its final act is a hands-in-the-air freefall, one that Fukunaga choreographs beautifully and Wasikowska and Fassbender bring to life with the utmost sincerity and depth. Even though it’s been told a thousand times before, “Jane Eyre” will make even the hardest heart swoon. (Drew Taylor)

The Oklahoman:

This stylish and impressive translation of the Charlotte Brontë classic “Jane Eyre,” starring Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell and Judi Dench and directed by Cary Fukunaga, should earn a prominent place on movie bookshelves.( David Stanley Ford)

Women and Hollywood:

It doesn’t matter what time period it takes place in, a good love story with good acting, a good script and good directing is timeless. And this one definitely qualifies. (Melissa Silverstein)

Moviefone:

At the risk of further drawing out a tenuous metaphor, the film manages to sustain its glow long after it disappears from theaters, thanks in no small part to Fukunaga's efforts to shake up the source material. Ultimately, this particular 'Jane Eyre' feels like the story of a modern woman who finds love precisely because (rather than in spite) of freeing herself from the shackles of patriarchal values, and the film as a whole succeeds by sharing with its audience that sense of integrity and empowerment. All of which really means is that Fukunaga communicates an authentic sense of tone and time period with his interpretation of Brontë's novel, but also makes it relevant for audiences who think of bodices and betrothals as literary devices rather than inescapable lifestyle choices. (Todd Gilchrist)

PopCulture:

Without any shame on our part, Jane Eyre is highly recommended, chiefly because it’s the best and most unsettling adaptation of English author Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 [sic] novel to date. Directed by Cary Fukunaga (whose 2009 debut Sin Nombre is another must-see film), this new take on the literary classic ramps up the spookiness while still maintaining all of the grace and narrative sleekness that scholars have adored for over 150 years. (Matthew Barone)

Edge:

While the movie runs on a bit too long toward the end, it is a continuously compelling story with characters so rich and emotionally complex, you want to study them. This is a throw-back to the old Merchant/Ivory movies that, while being a bit talky, never failed to engage. And with master filmmakers at work behind the camera and a cast that brings Brontë’s classic characters to life in front of it, this is a film worthy of our attention. (Kevin Taft)

OC Weekly:

Fukunaga has made his Jane Eyre an intimate, thoughtful epic, anchored by strong lead performances and the gorgeous, moody 100-shades-of-gray cinematography of Adriano Goldman. (...)
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)

Pajiba:

Fukunaga’s version of Jane Eyre is definitely going to piss off a few purists, and I say god bless him for it. It’s a bold and dark and cruel interpretation and I think it does Bronte’s work justice. Rather than another goddamn period costume piece with lace and petticoats and swelling musical strains, it’s a cloudy and gloomy look at a young girl escaping from a hell she doesn’t deserve and making her own choices. I guess the solace one can take is that Jane’s such a strong woman that she has the freedom to choose poorly. (Brian Prisco)

Hammer to Nail:

Though its windswept plains and hidden-away rooms are striking, Jane Eyre's most fascinating locale is its title character’s mind. Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of the 1847 novel by Charlotte Brontë is colored first and foremost by its heroine’s imagination, something that instills the film with an eerie and unnerving energy from its first few moments. The young auteur has an eye for imagery and, what’s more, puts it to good use in enhancing—rather than distracting from—his larger aim of weaving a visual, aural, and thematic tapestry: Jane Eyre's lush sensorial arrangements create an immersive sense of the ethereal, of what’s there but isn’t. This comes most explicitly in the form of Jane’s hallucinatory visions–which set the stage early on for a milieu consisting as much of internal wandering as external happenings–but its more subtle threading throughout the rest of the film is what makes Jane Eyre so distinct as a cinematic experience.(Michael Nordine)

Collider (B+):

There’s a vast gulf between adapting a gothic period romance and connecting with a modern audience. Director Cary Fukunaga doesn’t give a damn about that gulf and his adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is a lush, confident, and powerful film as a result. (...)
Fukunaga has made a film that may be impenetrable to those who can only enjoy movies that are drenched in pop-culture and irony. He’s created a beautiful, intriguing gothic romance that eschews mainstream accessibility in favor of taking audiences into a world that’s rarely seen in Hollywood movies. It would be easy to be cynical and snide about Jane Eyre if there was anything less than total devotion from Fukunaga and his lead actors, but everyone has thrown themselves into this world so completely that it’s almost impossible not to follow. (Matt Goldberg)

And ReelCelluloid, Critiquing Cinema to the Public, Monsters and Critics, on imdb: lor_, authorsyriejames, kburditt.

Mostly positive / Lukewarm

amNew York: (3 stars)

The film is still, above all, a faithful adaptation, classical in tone, and Fukunaga shies away from any radical innovations. But it marks a vivid return to a world defined by antiquated social mores and timeless emotions — the desire to love and be loved, and to control our own destinies. (Robert Levin)

New York Daily News (3 out of 5 stars):

Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender lack chemistry of gothic tale.(...)The real problem, though, is Fukunaga's inability to draw them together. Jane is beautifully rendered, and so are the windy moors that represent her gloomy, limited options as a woman without independent means. The supporting cast is also strong, with Dench, Simon McBurney and Jamie Bell offering particularly robust turns in small roles.
But much is left undeveloped, from Jane's ghostly anxieties to Rochester's evolving complexity. Wasikowska and Fassbender lack chemistry, and the latter never finds his character's depth, leaving us without a truly strong connection between our star-crossed heroes. Though there's enough to admire intellectually here, every "Jane Eyre" should also deliver some emotional swoons. (Elizabeth Weitzman)

Screencrave (7.5/10):

Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender are both amazing and hold together the story you’re going to the theater for, but it’s Judi Dench that steals just about every scene with her keen and subtle sense of humor. Truly they’re all delightful, but it’s hard to top a Dame. (...)
The Cinematography: Absolutely stunning! From the wide shots of the garden to the dimly lit night scenes that invoke the senses of what it’s like living in a dreary old castle with only a candle to guide you.(...)
Though I didn’t love the film, it was an extremely interesting watch and definitely worth experiencing. It’s different from many other period pieces in tone and the style of filmmaking. It’s a relevant tale which, though old, promotes positive female images — I know I sound dull but that’s quite rare in modern cinema! (Mali Elfman)

Anglophenia (BBC America):

This Jane Eyre emphasizes the book’s Gothic nature and the sharp verbal sparring between its eponymous heroine and Mr. Rochester. Here, Jane is played by Australian-born actress Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, The Kids Are All Right) and Rochester by the swoon-worthy Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds), a fast-rising star who was born in Germany but raised in Ireland.
While each gives a commendable performance — Wasikowska’s Jane is smart and not to be toyed with and Fassbender’s Rochester is dashing even as he barks at Jane — there’s a palpable lack of chemistry. Maybe it’s just that so many scenes, and this is a problem in many recent versions, are under-lit to the point of near blackout in an apparent nod to verisimilitude regarding the lack of electricity during the Victorian era. (Leah Rozen)

The Daily Bruin:

Jane isn’t a woman, wise with years of experience ready to take on anything that comes her way. Rather she is an 18-year-old girl, trying to figure out life with the bit of experience she does possess. Wasikowska accomplishes this in a way that makes you really feel for Jane as her world seems to fall apart.
Other standout performances include Judi Dench as the elder housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax, who, in so few words and glances, saves the audience from losing sight of how the romance between Jane and Mr. Rochester is pushing against social norms. Jamie Bell (“Billy Elliot”) is spot-on as the austere St. John, even if his screen time is limited.
Overall the film is entertaining and the acting impressive, but the central story, the romance between Jane and Mr. Rochester, ends without that feeling of satisfaction. However much I enjoyed elements of the story, I can’t help but wish I could have spent more time at Thornfield. (Samantha Suchland)

Capital New York complains bitterly about the absence of the gysy scene:

Apparently, it's not hard to make a Jane Eyre movie. But it's hard to make a good one. (...)
Love in Jane Eyre is not domestic. It cannot exist in a parlor with clattering tea cups. It is wild and passionate, agonizing and glorious, and when your lover calls out to you in his time of need, even if you are miles away, you will hear.
Unfortunately, Fukunaga deals with this film-making challenge by downplaying this aspect of the book, with the result that the film fails to achieve the book's affecting weirdness. Still, something of that dynamic does exist, in the strange interactions between Rochester and Jane. He is drawn to her. He can’t seem to stay away. She keeps trying to set boundaries, and he finds himself unable, again and again, to respect them. It’s a matter of chemistry, pure and simple. (...)
asikowska has had quite a year, what with playing Alice in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and Joni in The Kids Are All Right, and here she brings something completely new to the table, announcing her as a major player. Fassbender smolders and grins, gives her piercing glances across crowded rooms, and explodes in anger when he doesn’t get what he wants. He’s sexy and convincing, and is almost, almost, the Mr. Rochester of the book. If only he had gotten to dress up in drag. (Sheila O'Malley)

Television Without Pity:

The acting is top notch. Dench naturally steals every scene she's in with her looks and glances, and Fassbender is the appropriate combination of domineering and dreamy, and Wasikowska manages to exude the control that is necessary for playing the highly reserved titular character.
Again, with the many adaptations already out there, this isn't exactly new subject matter, or a story that was crying out for a new rendition, but it is well executed. This small film might not have an enormous appeal, but I'm pretty sure that the current generation of kids will be watching this instead of reading the book in order to pass their high school English classes. (Angel Cohn)

Rope of Silicon (the reviewer confuses Emily with Charlotte at one point):

Fassbender and Wasikowska are perfect in the two lead roles. Their characters' lonely and isolated souls feed into the initially despairing story line (...)
The film, however, is not without its faults. Most notably, the early pacing of the story. Jane's childhood years are told through flashback and while the story ultimately comes together quite well, the flashbacks seem ill-timed and, occasionally, abrupt. (...)
Everything said, Jane Eyre remains a film worth seeing. It's not as tightly bound as I would have liked, it has some bumps in the beginning and the end, but the middle-third is quite good and the performances are reason enough to give it a watch. (Brad Brevet)

Also, Ryan & Caroline's We See Movies.

Mostly Negative:

Film Journal International seems the only review up until now to question Mia Wasikowska's portrayal of Jane:

Fassbender and Dench are stellar actors who can hardly put a foot wrong, and the foggy expanses and howling winds of the Derbyshire dales, where much of the film was shot, are a filmmaker's best friend. Sadly, though, this Jane Eyre, though visually stunning, is a kind of classics-lite version, punching up the Gothic horror aspect of the story while stumbling in its attempt to capture its indelible characters. The film's weakest link is Wasikowska in a crucial bit of miscasting. (...)
The film's major misstep, though, is the casting of It-Girl Wasikowska. True, she did credible work in The Kids Are All Right, and at 18, she's exactly Jane's age. But Wasikowska doesn't yet have the acting chops to capture a character whose insistence on her own self-worth, seemingly arrived from nowhere, announced a revolutionary new heroine. She loses us from the earliest scenes, when she huddles weeping in the bracken and you half expect her to text, “OMG, there's some old freak in the attic.” (...)
Still, this Jane Eyre will likely find an audience among those hungry for a Bronte fix, as well as fans of Gothic atmosphere and tropes from horror films. In fact, perhaps the film's true stars are towering, dank Haddon Hall as Thornfield, the go-to pile for English period films, and those undulating moors that make romantics of us all. The tech package is superb, using natural lighting for the fog-wreathed cliffs and dark bracken, and fireplaces, candles and oil lanterns for the interiors.(Erica Abeel)

The New Jersey Star-Ledger's concerns are with Michael Fassbender, however:

That’s all here, along with a very good Mia Wasikowska (the daughter in “The Kids Are All Right” and the Alice in Tim Burton’s Wonderland). She makes a fine, contradictory Jane, both gravely composed and emotionally delicate.
But in many ways you measure a “Jane Eyre” by its Rochester, and by that scale, this version comes up a trifle short. (...)
Unfortunately, the adaptation by Moira Buffini is a bit rocky. Some wonderful parts in the novel (like young Jane’s time at the orphanage) are crudely truncated; other, oft-omitted material (like Jane’s other suitor, the cold Mr. Rivers) is added without adding very much. (Stephen Whitty)

PopMatters (5/10):

In these scenes and elsewhere, the film’s imagery is lovely as well as heavy-handed: Jane at a literal crossroads when she flees Thornfield, or in a golden bonnet framing her face like a halo when she returns. When she is with Rochester, the season always seems to be spring; when she is away from him, the landscape in wintry and barren.(...)
But given the focus on Jane’s resistance to gender and class conventions, it is curious that Bertha’s story is given such scant attention. The suspense and gothic horror of Bronte’s novel and other various screen and television versions are missing here. The movie provides no sense of something truly frightening and dangerous lurking in the attic at Thornfield—not to Jane, who asks no questions about the few strange incidents, and probably not to any viewer unfamiliar with the story. Without Bertha convincingly haunting Thornfield, Rochester seems less tormented than he does merely gruff and a little sadistic. The film’s mistreatment of Bertha serves as a double-erasure, repeating Rochester’s actions towards her. And like Rochester, the film pays for it. Bertha’s absence takes a toll on its energy and tension. (Renée Scolaro Mora)

Buzzsugar (3 out of 5 stars) (and video review)

Multiple miniseries and movies have taken on Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, so is another adaptation of the classic novel really necessary? Perhaps not, but director Cary Funkunaga's beautifully shot retelling is still a worthy addition to the previous versions of the tale. It stays loyal to Brontë's material while retaining the book's gothic soul. (...)
Though Funkunaga could've played up the mystery of Thornfield more (Rochester's secret in the attic isn't nearly as intriguing as it should be), Brontë's gothic vibe is alive and well in the director's hands, and the scenery is gorgeously gloomy. As Jane plods through the sodden moors or stares out the window of Thornfield, you can feel her isolation and anguish. But I was left wishing that her romantic feelings and her happier moments were equally stirring. (Lauren Bradshaw)

Negative Reviews:

A.V. Club (again the reviewer seems to have misunderstood the novel completely... when exactly in the novel "first they hate each other"?):

The sad fact is, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre just doesn’t make for appealing cinema. The basic elements might sound like the stuff of sparky movie magic: a crumbling, windswept manor; an unsettling secret, two tragic pasts, and a forbidden love between a clever woman and a tempestuous, brooding man. But given that the woman is plain, the man is ugly, the love is largely forbidden because they come from slightly dissimilar social classes, and the actual romance is an unlikely, abrupt template for “first they hate each other, then they love each other” stories, Jane Eyre always seems to suffer in translation, usually from filmmakers who “improve” on the formula by making everything and everyone prettier, smoother, and more generic. (...)
This is a quiet, contemplative Jane Eyre, a childproofed one with all the pointed edges sanded off. It’s respectful of the source material, but apparently too much of a stately costume drama to have energy, drive, or a sense of danger. (Tasha Robinson)

ComingSoon:

Unfortunately, Fukunaga's film also has serious pacing problems, especially once Jane gets to Thornfield, where it turns into an hour-long flashback. When not playing with the eeriness of Jane's imposing nearly-empty new home, it's essentially a lot of flowery dialogue, most of which feels dated and it gets dull quite quickly. (...)
The umpteenth take on Brontë's novel takes a unique gothic approach, but the results are grim at times and dull at others, making it hard to appreciate the generally solid performances by Fukunaga's impressive cast. (Edward Douglas)

On imdb, persephonae_a.

In Summary:

Rottentomatoes: 88 % Fresh
Reviews Counted: 38
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 4
Audience: 77 liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 8,802