MartinHafer
I have seen many versions of "Jane Eyre" and love the story so much I read the book. Reading the book, however, left me wondering why so much of the original story is left out of the films...and my hope was that this nearly four-hour mini-series would finally get the whole story on the screen. Usually, several subplots are completely omitted...and, as a result, while the films are quite good they are missing some very important material...particularly the portion involving the missionary...perhaps THE most important part of the book! Fortunately, this mini-series DOES include this...as well as the usually omitted portion involving Jane's family. So, if you are looking for complete...well this IS the version for you.So how does it stack up otherwise? Is it good? Is it watchable even though the story has been told and re-told again and again? Well, yes. I liked the actors who played both Jane and Rochester. Ruth Wilson wasn't as harsh and unattractive as some other Janes and TOby Stephens played a Rochester who was a bit happier and smiled more than usual...which I enjoyed. The color cinematography is darker than many might like...as it's going for a moody look instead of a pretty and cinematic look...but I thought this rather fitting. Overall, for this purist, it left me thrilled...and the romantic scenes were incredibly moving...enough to make me forget the other previous versions.
gmorgan51-158-682165
Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens are phenomenal in this adaptation of Jane Eyre. This was the best production of Charlotte Bronte's famous love story that I have ever seen, and I have seen them all. I was completely captivated by each episode of the BBC's four-part series, and could not tear myself away. I did not expect the film version to be exactly like the novel - few such adaptations are, but nothing was left untold. As a fan of Luther, which starred Idris Elba, I was familiar with Ruth Wilson, and was not surprised by her understated yet exceptional performance. The surprise for me was Toby Stephens. He gave us all of Mr. Rochester - his gloom, his sadness, his tenderness, his humor, his aristocracy, and his overall decency. The production is excellent!
name lastname
It's nowhere even near the book, the woman who wrote the screenplay read too many cheesy romantic novels, so she invented the whole story, the dialogue and presented it to us as "Jane Eyre", to attract viewers. The series start with some red cloth, waved at our faces for many minutes, are we in communist China? Then, some girl, sitting in a desert, fiddling with sand. What desert, what sand? There is no desert and no sand in "Jane Eyre". The, some silly scene with some painter, which is not in the book also. Due to the desert and the painter, the scenes from childhood were cut off, and one can hardly understand what ailed the girl - she was closed in some room where she stared at the portrait, and it seemed to be her main grudge (no illness, no breakdown). The next second, "Jane" opens her eyes, and she is in a luxurious bed, attended by a doctor. In the book, the aunt called an apothecary to save money on a doctor's visit. In fact, the doctor promises to return again, meaning the evil aunts pays for two expensive visits, that's how evil she is. When Jane tells the aunt how she feels, instead of being indignant at the aunt's lies, she sounds like a prim teacher, telling the older woman what to do and how to behave. One can barely stand not to slap the brat and tell her not to order others around. In Lowood, everything is skipped through, scenes look more like flashbacks. Jane's friend Mary sounds borderline imbecilic, instead of the smartest girl in the school. She also looks extremely righteous and self-satisfied. Thornton Hall does not look as a house of a wealthy aristocratic gentleman, but like some Gothic ruins, to enter which you must crawl almost on all fours into some dilapidated gate (surely a rich man could have paid to fix it). Inside, it's all ruins, too, in which a couple of rooms were cleared and some furniture was installed. Aunt's Reed's house is a real gentlemanly house, and she was nowhere near Mr Rochester in riches. Adele is portrayed like a cretin girl, interested only in clothes, jewels and presents. Mr Rochester is a self-satisfied creep, who knows that he has a pretty face but is constantly fishing for compliments. He is also constantly mentioning his 20K, in case the pretty face was not enough. Original Mr Rochester never mentioned the exact sum of his fortune, no gentleman ever would. Mr Rochester in series is also giggling all the time, like he is deranged, plays with Ouija board (the "real" one was an educated man and would have never stooped to such rubbish), and bullies and humiliates other people playing on their superstitions. But, he found his match in Jane Eyre. In a book, Jane was an educated woman and she was extremely modern, had a career, hobbies, dreams. In these series, she can't even educate Adele properly, who continues to wiggle and giggle. She, too, is fishing for the compliments all the time, playing the victim card ("I was not fed for eight years", "yes, sir, they didn't feed me", "yes, but remember, sir, I told you how they never fed me"). "Real" Jane had too much taste and tact to talk like this. She disclosed some of the abuse that went in the school when asked directly, but never went around with "woe to me, everyone was bad to me" look, permanently plastered to her face. The real Jane never shared a full story about her inheritance with Mr Rochester, the Jane in the series brags about it, to show off and to fish for compliment on her "generosity". She was judgmental, never did much but sketched something, left Adele entirely to her French bonne, and was preoccupied with the one thing only - how to attract a man. The actress is not plain at all either, though the blotched lip injections did disfigured her face, giving her lips a lop-sided look, with the upper lip constantly hovering over the lower one. Her female cousins, instead of being educated well bred women, talked at once and screeched like magpies, also giggled all the time God knows why, and could outgiggle Mr Rochester himself on a good day. The whole thing was turned into a cheap cheesy pseudoromantic farce. Poor author must be turning in her grave. I could never understood why people blotched books so. If the writer of the screenplay thought she was better than Bronte, she should have written her own screenplay, call it "An imbecilic governess captures a rich man" and produce it as a mini series, which, of course, no one would have wanted to watch. Instead, piggy riding on a great name, we are forced to watch complete and utter rubbish, which has absolutely nothing to do with the book.
