Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements including a nude image and brief violent content
Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Judi Dench, Holliday Grainger
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
After being sent to a reformatory school by a loathsome aunt (Sally Hawkins) too sclerotic in her assumption that her niece will rise to little more than a nuisance, Jane learns diligence and tractability. Her belly, however, houses a fire that continues to rage despite being bedewed by the reality that her curiosities for anything beyond her line of sight will never be satisfied.
Jane's skills as a governess have brought her to Thornfield Manor in the employment of Edward Fairfax Rochester (Michael Fassbender). She immediately befriends the manor's loyal, salt-of-the-earth housekeeper (Judi Dench). Rochester is away for months at a time, and meets Jane in the gloomy and fog-filled forest upon one of his returns.
Rochester senses a painful past in Jane, and she intuits a hoard of dark secrets locked inside his being. The man is decadent, tormented, and most assuredly hiding something. Jane does her best to keep up a barrier of class order cognizance yet her eyes betray her attraction. Rochester picks up on this, and consistently attempts to elicit emotional reactions one wouldn't expect from a servant. Their fireside chats are like fencing duels; words taking on the roles of lunges and maneuvers. The mutual attraction becomes too powerful to resist, which leads to the discovery of some truly harrowing secrets.
There have been a multitude of film adaptations of Charlotte Bronte's gothic romance novel, and this one holds its own. Director Cary Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini employ similar techniques that Bronte herself found useful. Most notably in revealing bits at a time, enough for us to realize the precarious destination in the heroine's journey, but spilling the dreaded secrets only after emotional tolls have been traversed.
The narrative distinction here is the jumping back and forth in time, as the story opens with Jane stumbling away from Thornfield, is then discovered and cared for by a kind though somewhat dour clergyman (Jamie Bell). From there, the story shifts back to various points in Jane's past, where we see the genesis of her naivete toward the dark side of human nature.
Accented by Adriano Goldman's hauntingly shadowed cinematography and Will Hughes-Jones' magnificently rich production design, the film is a triumph of gothic mood. If the pace seems to revel in its languor, that's to be expected. The evocation of atmosphere isn't something that can be rushed. This is a love story bedeviled by emotional wretchedness, yet it accepts and even somewhat respects its gloom, rather than molding it into a clunky plot device that needs to be overcome. Jane's love for Rochester is bred from pity, not fear. That's an important distinction for successful gothic love stories.
Mia Wasikowska's physical attractiveness is drastically reeled in here, making her facial expressions revealing to the point to emotional nakedness. Her performance is an endless joust between the past she longs to hide and a possible future she longs to realize. She's an ideal choice for the role of Jane.
As Rochester, Michael Fassbender skillfully adds a potent dose of cynical reasoning to his surreptitious actions. ("Since happiness has eluded me, I may as well seek simple pleasures," he confesses.)
Judi Dench creates a servant supremely loyal to Rochester despite his cruelly dismissive reactions to her presence. She senses the flaws in his character that Jane cannot. And in a small but crucial role, Sally Hawkins is unrecognizable as the despicable aunt. She's playing a character the polar opposite from her star turn in Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky."
This is the kind of tortured love story that vampire-obsessed teen romance dramas today seem to want to be, but fall short. The distinction lies in the celebration of the dark side of human nature. Teen romances today, even the so-called "darkest" ones, are too fascinated by the mysterious to embrace its nature. Here's a film that espouses the torment that fuels the romance. This adaptation taps into the unbridled power gothic romances--when done well--can hold over us.
* * * out of * * * * stars
