Jane Eyre (2011): The Book Is Better

The advantage of making a movie from a classic novel is you have a built in audience. The problem is that it’s hard to meet that audience’s expectations.

Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre was published in 1847. It depicts the struggle of an intelligent young girl/woman to maintain her independent spirit in a male dominated world, overcoming poverty and childhood cruelty, as well as class and gender restrictions. It is also a gothic-style tale of repressed romantic and sexual passion, and a man with a “terrible secret”. Bronte’s novel is a beautifully rendered story, which may explain why it has remained popular for 160 years, and may also explain why this book has been brought to the screen so many times. According to IMDB, twelve movies have been made based on this book, five in the silent era alone; and ten TV movies or miniseries as well.

So how does the new version hold up? Let me first say that I have read the novel but once, 10 or 15 years ago, and quite liked it. In this I surprised myself, as I am not a huge fan of gothic literature generally. And I have only seen one other film adaptation, the 1943 Orson Welles/Joan Fontaine picture (for comparison, after viewing the current release).

In my view, a movie must succeed or fail on its own merits. It is a popular and amusing sport to compare movies to the novels from which they are adapted or derived, and, while I sometimes indulge in this game, it is folly. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but many qualities of a good novel simply cannot be transferred to film: the prose style is one example, the inner thoughts and musings of the characters may be another. With a novel like Jane Eyre, this recognition is critical, since Jane narrates her own story and the reader is privy to her thoughts, musings, and feelings about the events of her life in a way that cannot be directly captured on camera. Yet the physical and emotional atmosphere, the landscape, the characters’ physical appearance and their connection with one another may be conveyed in a film in a way impossible to render on the page.

This preamble is my preemptive defense against those admirers of the novel who may be predisposed to love this movie. I did not. The main problem is that Mia Wasikowska as Jane comes across largely as an empty vessel, reacting to most of the events of her life with a blank visage. There are a few exceptions where manufactured tears are in evidence. But mostly, she presents us with a passive expression – to which we are invited to superimpose whatever we want her to be thinking or feeling (or what the musical score encourages us to feel on her behalf). Whether this effect is a directorial choice by Fukunaga or a failing on the part of Wasikowska, I cannot say; probably both are to blame. Whatever the reason, it is maddening to watch, particularly in the several scenes in which Jane is together with Mr. Rochester, the brooding, imperious, master of Thornfield Hall, Jane’s employer, and the man she comes to love and who loves her. Jane is supposed to be proper, reserved, and cautious certainly, but she is also passionate inside, intelligent, and eventually, in love. Perhaps it is assumed that we viewers know the story already, so we can fill in these qualities for Jane, and the script does give her some dialogue which suggests what may be lurking within; but Wasikowski’s rendering is empty and flat. Consequently, there is no chemistry between her and Rochester. His desperation when Jane departs, and her compulsion to eventually return to him are inexplicable, in the sense that neither feels true or real. These things come across as plot devices we are just supposed to accept.

If you disagree, I suggest you check out Joan Fontaine’s performance as Jane in the 1943 picture. Like Wasikowska, she is plainly dressed, mild mannered, careful in her speech. But she is a flesh and blood character. Her eyes move. She actually reacts to the events as they occur, and she connects with Orson Welles’ Rochester from the first meeting. We know then that something is afoot, and as the relationship grows, so does Fontaine’s connection with Welles.

Jane and her relationship with Rochester are the heart of the story and of this film, and it is a shame that Jane comes across as so vacuous in the new film, because otherwise there is a lot to like here. Michael Fassbender's Rochester is believable and compelling. He is virile, emotional, masterly, brooding. While not exactly handsome, he is certainly manly and attractive. He does not chew up the screen like Welles, but he fills every scene he is in. With his strong jaw, and burning eyes, his Rochester is a force to recken with. His passion for Jane develops and grows, notwithstanding the absence of visual reciprocation; which makes Fassbender’s performance the more remarkable. He is featured in several upcoming films, and I suspect his star is rising.

Judi Dench inhabits her role as Mrs. Fairfax the housekeeper in a charming, believable way. She gossips, reassures, bustles about and gives needed life to her scenes with Jane, again without much in the way of reciprocation. Jamie Bell as Rivers does a nice job, showing compassion for Jane at her most woebegone, and credible incomprehension at her subsequent unwillingness to marry him and go off to convert the heathen.

The scenes from Jane’s childhood effectively portray the harshness of her life and the Dickensian conditions endured by the poor and powerless. Jane’s aunt, Mrs. Reed (Sally Hawkins), is cold, selfish and cruel - like a 19th century Mrs Dursley; and Mr. Brocklehurst , clergyman/proprietor of the horrific Lowood School, is a sadistic, self-righteous, highly hypocritical villain, and the school itself has a cold, dark prison-like atmosphere. The child Jane (Amelia Clarkson) is sympathetic, but like her older self, played as a largely quiescent character. Again, comparisons to the 1943 film are revealing: Peggy Ann Garner in the same role shows a lot of spunk, which helps us better understand the sturdy backbone and spirit of the adult Jane Eyre. (The earlier film has an added benefit: 10 year old Elizabeth Taylor plays the doomed Helen, Jane’s school friend).

Adriano Goldman, the cinematographer of the current film, shows us the beautiful but bleak and foreboding heath and moors around Thornfield. His interiors are dark and mysterious, sometimes so dark one fears that poor Jane will fall and injure herself. The photography emphasizes the strangeness and loneliness of the place, and, coupled with the strange bumps and moans in the night, add to the growing sense of mystery surrounding the place, leading to the revelation of Rochester’s secret.

But eventually, this is the story of Jane Eyre, and Jane just doesn’t cut it.

In theaters.
The 1943 Film with Welles and Fontaine is available on DVD and as a Netflix streaming download.