DVD Reviews

Jane Eyre - Blu-ray Review

By June L. Aug 17, 2011, 13:38 GMT

Mia Wasikowska ("Alice in Wonderland"), Michael Fassbender ("Inglourious Basterds") and Academy Award(R) winner Judi Dench ("Shakespeare in Love") star in acclaimed director Cary Fukunaga\'s daring new adaptation of the timeless romance. When orphaned governess Jane Eyre (Wasikowska) arrives at imposing Thornfield Hall, she\'s intrigued by her brooding wealthy employer, Rochester (Fassbender). His dark moods and the strange occurrences in the house lead her to discover a terrible secret that he ...more

The latest film adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre is a glorious treat for literary and movie fans. Scenery, script, production and acting skills blend to make a flawless tale of human strengths, weaknesses, relationships and spirit that is haunting and beautiful.

Mia Wasikowska is the perfect Jane Eyre. Her interpretation of the character is finely tuned to the written original. She is young and innocent of the world, but no stranger to life’s cruelties as she has been denied the love of a family and has no material property. Rather than pity herself, she values what she does have, her education and the knowledge that she can speak her mind with strength of conviction.

Wasikowska is not a glamour girl playing at being a plain woman, she is a chameleon-like actress who is able to reveal the true beauty of Jane in that lies in her strength. She gives us Jane in all her youth, not particularly pretty by society’s standards, but with an animation and intelligence that makes her face expressive and intrigues the audience as well as Mr. Rochester.

The most brilliant scenes of the film are those having conversations between Jane and Mr. Rochester, Jane and Mrs. Reed, and Jane and St. John Rivers. In each of these encounters the other character is apt to underestimate Jane. With wit and words, she sets each straight as to what she thinks and feels, and we see the intelligence and passion of the heroine that Charlotte Bronte wished to convey.

Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester is extraordinary. Instead of Victorian surly and gruffness, this Mr. Rochester has an anger that although mostly hidden, manifests as an air of disappointment with the world. He is restless in spirit and that speaks unknowingly to Jane’s own dissatisfaction with fate.

In our age of mean spirited interactions, it may be difficult to see Rochester’s hard talk as vicious, but in Victorian times it was offensive. Fassbender’s Rochester is completely aware he is being a stinker, but he feels it is his right to be as obstreperous as he wishes. He also knows that he has done the best he can for his wife Bertha, he has kept her from being put in an insane asylum, “madhouse” as it was called in that day, where she would have been treated with little care and much indignity.

Social Reforms were talked about, but not in much practice at that time. He feels entitled to act badly, but is also disappointed in his own weakness.

Dame Judi Dench as the motherly Mrs. Fairfax, Sally Hawkins as the spiteful Mrs. Reed, Imogen Poots as the beauteous Blanche Ingram, and Jamie Bell as the inspired St. John Rivers add dimension and veracity to the world as Jane sees it. There are moments of supreme Gothic suspense and threads of chilling horror that are so important in the novel, along with very human interactions, all beautifully presented in scene after scene.

Real people caught in situations that are rendered nightmarish by a sense of the unexplained, or the unknown. The environment becomes as much a character in the story, the bleakness of a winter garden waiting for warmth to spring to life, a stalwart tree broken by a storm and perhaps blighted for life, the desolate moors offering a sanctuary to Jane in the form of friends and occupation. It is all wonderfully and carefully captured in this incredible film.

The Jane Eyre Blu-ray is presented on single disc with a running time of just over two hours. In the Special Features there are some exceptional scenes that were deleted, There is also a featurette “To Score Jane Eyre: Cary Fukunaga and Dario Marianelli Team Up” which takes a look and a listen to the process that produced the hauntingly beautiful music of the film.

The Mysterious Light of Jane Eyre explores the Gothic elements achieved by cinematographer Adriano Goldman, and the film has a commentary track with Director Cary Fukunaga that provides a great deal of technical and interesting information concerning the production.