Jane Eyre

The pretty, moody, well-acted new adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" rests on a key early scene between Mia Wasikowska, as Bronte's protagonist and narrator, and Michael Fassbender, as the storm warning known as Edward Rochester.

 

This is one of the most famous getting-to-know-you passages in 19th century literature, chronicling the second encounter and first civil conversation between the new governess of Thornfield Hall and her employer.

With a disarming mixture of candor and restraint, Jane acquits herself so nimbly in the face of so much bluff, it's as if the charismatic bad boy with a secret were discovering a new species -- a rare object of fascination and adoration.

Thanks to the enduring draw of Bronte's 1847 two-volume novel, generation upon generation of readers have made the same discovery.

Without making any provocative new discoveries, the latest film version of the novel, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, honors the source material. It's certainly a start and, if you have the right actors, sometimes it's enough for a satisfying finish.

We'll get to what's missing from this "Jane Eyre" in a minute. Here's what works, and what makes it worth seeing.

For starters, Wasikowska. If the actress playing Jane Eyre, the only potential pity party in popular fiction to rival Oliver Twist, begs for our sympathy in any direct fashion, the story dies faster than you can say "Helen Burns." Bronte's Jane is bullied, beaten, cowed, humiliated and -- worst of all -- marginalized by her guardians, her Lowood schoolmasters and the wider world around her. Then she arrives at Thornfield Hall and her destiny.

Wasikowska, who starred in the recent "Alice in Wonderland" and co-starred in "The Kids Are All Right," has many virtues as an actress, but above all, she is as honest as the day is long. She seems to act very little, which sounds lazy or easy, but in fact requires great skill. Fassbender's Rochester has the dash and spirit of a Byronic antihero; crucially, he also has a sense of humor about his harrumphing character's unexpected attraction to this pale, watchful governess. In their lengthy scene by the fireside Wasikowska and Fassbender appear to be sussing each other out, pushing each other's buttons, in all the right ways. It is a crisply paced highlight.

The screenwriter Moira Buffini has restructured Bronte's narrative so that the story begins near the end, and then flashes back. This works well. What is lacking? I hesitate to use the most hackneyed two words in English, but: character development. The 1944 Robert Stevenson version of "Jane Eyre," a wild-eyed, visually striking black-and-white affair starring Joan Fontaine (post-"Rebecca") and Orson Welles (more effective in his uncredited design contributions than in his performance), has many flaws, but its screenplay manages a gradual and convincing coming-together of the main characters. This latest version radically condenses the process. Here, it's one scene and bam: love, hard and fast. Bronte wrote of the "cord of communion" between Jane and Rochester, pulling them toward one another almost against their will. The movie gives that cord a strong yank early on -- too strong, I think.

Director Fukunaga's previous film was "Sin Nombre," about Honduran nationals trekking north, perilously, to Mexico and eventually America. That film's mixture of realism and melodrama was very much like the unsteady world Fukunaga creates in "Jane Eyre," veering from windswept, hand-held-camera walks against the gray skyline of Derbyshire to classically minded camera swoops and glides. The results are all over the place visually.

And to no one's surprise, the story still works like Gothic gangbusters, thanks in part to reliable backcourt support from Judi Dench (as Mrs. Fairfax) and Sally Hawkins (as Jane's venal guardian). I couldn't help but feel this adaptation needed more of the thing for which Jane herself yearns: a sense of freedom. At their best, though, Wasikowska and Fassbender hint at their well-worn characters' inner lives, which are complex, unruly and impervious to time.

 

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"Jane Eyre" Movie Trailer

 

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements including a nude image and brief violent content).

Running time: 2:00.

Cast: Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre); Michael Fassbender (Edward Rochester); Judi Dench (Mrs. Fairfax); Jamie Bell (St. John Rivers); Imogen Poots (Blanche Ingram); Amelia Clarkson (Jane, age 10); Sally Hawkins (Mrs. Reed).

Credits: Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga; written by Moira Buffini, based on the novel by Charlotte Bronte; produced by Alison Owen and Paul Trijbits. A Focus Features release.

 

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