|
 A
couple of years ago, I was stunned by a young director’s first feature.
Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s Sin Nombre
{2009} was a breathtaking,
bitter slice of life; spotlighting the crashing worlds of an immigrant
family and a Mexican gang member, each desperate to change their lives
for the better. Amidst the brutality of the circumstances, Fukunaga
presented a deft and beautifully photographed narrative that made its
rawness almost lyrical. Fascinating as that movie was, hearing the
director had taken on a new adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s best known
novel was a surprise. Happily, Fukunaga’s demonstrated grasp of a
lovely scene and poetic storytelling is a wonderful compliment to
Brontë’s prose, while his ability to cut keenly through veils of purple
that have smothered this story in previous versions serves to create one
of the most mesmerising, relevant retells yet seen.
Bettering ones lot is as relevant for Jane Eyre as it was for the
characters in Sin Nombre. As an orphaned child, Jane finds herself at
the mercy of relatives who begrudge the very air that she breathes and
ship her off to the cruelest boarding school they can find at the first
sign of Jane’s intelligence and strong will. After a harsh
matriculation that includes the death of a dear friend, Jane is sent
into the world to make of herself the best she can, landing a seemingly
lucrative position as a governess to the ward of a wealthy man. Her
arrival at the gloomy estate brings new life to the place and all is
well until the master himself arrives.
Jaded and acerbic, Mr. Rochester
is a moody bugger who simultaneously enjoys and is aggravated by the
tension he creates at Thornfield. Having literally run into Rochester
before in a somewhat less decorous circumstance -- nearly crippling him
after an encounter on the moors -- Jane is marginally less disturbed in
her employer’s presence and a contentious rapport develops between the
two that blooms into something more. Can Jane believe this fairy-tale
she’s in; the lord of a prosperous manor willing do the unthinkable and
cross class lines to make her his? It seems too good to be true. Yes,
it does.
With
verdant locations swathed in the mists of the English countryside,
Fukunaga immerses his viewer in the Gothic mood of the novel; the sense
of modesty and social constrictions of the age soon follow. The look of
the film is flawless and Fukunaga frames his scenes beautifully. Odd
jumps in the film’s timing, flashing forward and back to different
points in Jane’s story and a strangely rushed ending disjoint the pacing
somewhat, but doesn’t derail it.
Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska
is our young Jane and it was a wise choice to cast an actor close to the
age of the character as written. It’s the natural hopefulness of youth
that makes Jane capable of believing that anything is possible and any
obstacle to the path of true love can be overcome. Jane is invested
with a strong will and self-possession that hints just enough of a
post-modern feminism; an independence that sets her apart from other
girls and may very well be the thing that attracts the thorny
Rochester.
Michael Fassbender is all smoulder and spark as the bored
aristocrat with a big secret and a lax attitude toward marriage laws.
As is Jane in her circumstance, Rochester is looking for a way out of
his own purgatory, posh as it may be and sees the bright young girl as
his key. Fassbender is electric, making Rochester far more appealing
than his literal counterpart. He does for well-cut breeches what Colin
Firth did for white shirts and water in 1995’s Pride and Prejudice. My
only other hedge in all this is that young Wasikowska, who does
admirably in all other instances, can’t quite hold her own in romantic
scenes with Fassbender. One never gets the feeling that she’s nearly as
taken with Rochester as one might reckon for a girl of her tender years,
or as the audience is sure to be. She doesn’t quite know what to do
with her face and it often reads strangely blank in the middle of
impassioned scenes. Fassbender’s got enough charisma for two and so it
works out in the end.
Judi Dench radiates warmth as Mrs. Fairfax; the
housekeeper lived long at Thornfield and privy to the skeletons in the
manor’s closets, even the ones with flesh still on them. Seeing the
house filled with life again through the presence of little Adèle and
her governess Jane pleases her, but she’s wise enough to know it can’t
last. Jamie Bell has a nice turn as a country parson who aids Jane in a
time of need, and despite his formal, tweedy manner, the very proper
vicar makes a good run for Jane’s affections.
It
takes a keen hand to make a movie from a book that’s possibly the most
adapted in history seem alive and worth retelling yet again. Director
Fukunaga makes his Jane Eyre one to remember through the lush beauty of
his film and the fresh, vibrant performances he induces from his actors.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
March
10th, 2011
Click here
for our review of director Cary Fukunaga's 2009 feature debut, Sin
Nombre
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