Review of Jane Eyre (2011) by Ypomoni — 04 Jul 2013

I've seen many film and TV adaptions of the book, but this has got to be one of the worst. It's clinical no emotion whatsoever, especially from Mia Wasikowska. Her portrayal of Jane Eyre is that of a woman who, traumatised by her past experiences, can only go through the motions of everyday life expressionless and do what is told of her. It makes it all the more unbelievable that Rochester (Michael Fassbender) would say he has fallen in love with her because she is "fresh" (young, yes, but stale as 3 week old bread), and able to "regenerate" him (what on earth did he base this assumption on? The fact that he had not seen her smile once?). More scenes seemed equally ridiculous because of this, such as the fact that St John Rivers (Jamie Bell) would call her ambitious (again, what did he base this assumption on? Her lively conversations about her big dreams?). Because it is filmed out of sequence, with a series of flashbacks (whose bright idea was this?) for someone who has no prior knowledge of the book it would seem she acts exactly the same around these two main male characters in her life, again making it hard to guess not why, but actually when did she fall for one and not the other!

As for the rest of the cast, I cannot say they did much better -with the exception of Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax leading me to believe this sterile atmosphere was intentional. Even Fassy seemed to be struggling with his portrayal of Mr. Rocherster, which came across as cranky, and not in that there-must-be-something-else kinda way. Overall, a disappointment.