The much put upon Jane Eyre gets yet another adaption to the big screen with Charlotte Gainsbourg in the title role and William Hurt as the brooding Lord Rochester. As the story goes each becomes the other's savior at different points of the tale.I've always felt that the reason for Jane Eyre's enduring popularity is that it's a tale of both resilience and courage for women in an age when if woman did not have man's protection she was adrift and in trouble. Women were little more than chattel during the Victorian times that Jane Eyre was written.Anna Paquin plays Jane as a child and Jane is one unloved child sent to live with relations who barely tolerate her. She's sent to board with a school run by John Wood playing school master Mr. Brocklehurst, a man with issues. She's treated cruelly and has to watch a young friend die from neglect. But it hardens her character though she wonders if love will come her way.When the grownup Jane Eyre now played by Gainsbourg leaves the school where she has become a teacher she gets a job with Lord Rochester's estate as a governess. The master of the house is rarely there and Gainsbourg is well established by the time William Hurt returns from one of his many trips abroad.Gainsbourg's responsibilities is to Lord Rochester's daughter Adele and she becomes mother and father to the child. The story of the mother is part of the reason for William Hurt's frequent absences. Something in Gainsbourg touches a sentimental and romantic part of Hurt's character. There's still a lot of problems to be resolved. In the end the relative economic positions have been reversed, but these two people need each other more than ever.Charlotte Bronte's novel has certainly got an enduring popularity, this is one of several adaptions to the big screen and small. Gainsbourg compares well with Joan Fontaine probably the most well known portrayer of Jane Eyre. William Hurt is good as Rochester, so good that you hardly notice his distinct American speech pattern. Then again Fontaine's Rochester was Orson Welles another American.Jane Eyre I've always felt was a feminist role model, a woman who makes her way in the world successfully when women were not legal and social equals. It's the reason the story will have an enduring popularity and this version can stand proudly besides previous adaptions.

This movie is really just not very good. The story was largely rushed and truncated- especially the ending. I know things have to be cut to fit it into such a short time frame (less than two hours) but I feel it was just handled clumsily. The first two thirds of the movie were just mediocre, nothing to write home about, but the last part was just a mess. The acting was nothing special either. Those who were good were wasted in their too-small roles. Those who were featured more were not very good. The two words that appear most in my notes are "flat" and "emotionless." It was an all around disappointment, devoid of all of the passion and fire of the book.Fiona Shaw was very good, but was entirely wasted as Mrs. Reed, in her very limited screen time. Gateshead was way too rushed. Anna Paquin is very good as Jane, but the character is even more feisty than in the book. Even though she was near 25, Charlotte Gainsbourg did look the right age for Jane and they did a pretty good job making her look plain. She was way too tall though (with an very long neck) and although she had everything to make a good Jane, she was pretty dull actually. She was even more reserved and quiet than the book Jane, which, given how passionate her younger self was in this, was especially jarring.If I thought Gainsbourg's Jane was lackluster, that was nothing compared to William Hurt's Rochester. My original feelings on him were "block of wood" and my opinion remains unchanged upon the latest viewing. My above mentioned "flat" and "emotionless" apply to him more than anyone or anything else in this film. Not only did he and Jane not have any chemistry (I'm unsure how they even fell in love in this, since they have so few scenes together), he just didn't seem to care at all. He was so dull! The proposal scene was so passionless, and even their kissing looked staged (i.e. their lips did not really touch). He did not show Rochester's brooding/angry side or the humorous side. He just played a block of wood.

It's curious to see an adaptation that takes away bits of drama and suspense from a novel, instead of adding them. There rather tends to be extra explosions, screams, prolonged farewells and running around mindlessly. Not here. I never expected to see a Jane Eyre without the horrible vision of Bertha in Jane's room and the torn veil, but for some reason this is one of the scenes left out, and it is very telling. The laughter echoing in the corridors is bound to make you uneasy, not scared. The Gothic element is simply missing. And when Jane leaves, she rides a carriage to St John and Mary, whom she's already met, and has no need to wander around the moors without food, dignity or even a name. Nothing dangerous, incredible or hand-of-God-like in all of it.Still this is not a bad film to watch. I liked Charlotte Gainsbourg as Jane, although I too would have liked to see her eventually show more wit and "warmth" of character, both in the old and the new sense of the word. I still had the feeling it was there, she was a Jane Eyre, she simply didn't have time. Like St John didn't have time to propose or Blanche Ingram to stage the charades, the fortune teller to appear or the triangle of Helen, Miss Taylor and Jane to be played out. Great material for a film, sadly not there. And Rochester... you had to know him to fill in the gaps.But, I have to say, it was weird to see Anna Paquin and Fiona Shaw in the beginning, as Jane and Aunt Reed, hating each other as much as they did as Sookie Stackhouse and Marnie the necromancer! For that I almost added a star.

This 1996 movie was the first adaptation of Jane Eyre that I ever watched and when I did so I was appalled by it. So much of the novel had been left out and I considered William Hurt to be terribly miscast as Rochester. Since then I have watched all the other noteworthy adaptations of the novel, the three short versions of '44, '70 and '97 and the three mini series of '73, '83 and 2006, and I have noticed that there are worse adaptations and worse Rochesters.This is without doubt the most exquisite Jane Eyre adaptation as far as cinematography is concerned. Director Franco Zerifferelli revels in beautiful long shots of snow falling from a winter sky, of lonely Rochester standing on a rock, and of Jane looking out of the window - but he is less good at telling a story and bringing characters to life. In addition, his script merely scratches the surface of the novel by leaving out many important scenes. As a consequence the film does not show the depth and complexity of the relationship between Jane and Rochester, and sadly it does also not include the humorous side of their intercourse. There are a number of short conversations between Rochester and Jane, each of them beautifully staged, but the couple of sentences they exchange do not suffice to show the audience that they are drawn to each other. We know that they are supposed to fall in love, but we never see it actually happen. The scene in which Rochester wants to find out Jane's reaction to his dilemma by putting his case in hypothetical form before her after the wounded Mason has left the house is completely missing, and the farewell scene, the most important scene - the climax - of the novel is reduced to four sentences. Zerifferelli does not make the mistake other scriptwriters have made in substituting their own poor writing for Brontë's superb lines, neither are crucial scenes completely changed and rewritten, but he makes the less offensive but in the end similarly great mistake of simply leaving many important scenes out. What remains is just a glimpse of the novel, which does no justice to Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece.The cast is a mixed bag: While Fiona Shaw is an excellent Mrs Reed, Anna Paquin's young Jane is more an ill-mannered, pout Lolita than a lonely little girl, longing for love. The ever-reliable Joan Plowright makes a very likable, but far too shrewd Mrs Fairfaix, and one cannot help feeling that Billie Whitelaw is supposed to play the village witch instead of plain-looking, hard-working Grace Poole. Charlotte Gainsbourgh as the grown-up heroine, however, is physically a perfect choice for playing Jane Eyre. Looking every bit like 18, thin and frail, with irregular, strong features, she comes closest to my inner vision of Jane than any other actress in that role. And during the first 15 minutes of her screen time I was enchanted by her performance. Gainsbourgh manages well to let the audience guess at the inner fire and the strong will which are hidden behind the stoic mask. But unfortunately the script never allows her to expand the more passionate and lively side of Jane's character any further. As a result of leaving out so many scenes and shortening so much of the dialogues, Gainsbourgh's portrayal of Jane must necessarily remain incomplete and therefore ultimately unsatisfactory. This is a pity, as with a better script Charlotte Gainsbourgh might have been as good a Jane as Zelah Clarke in the '83 version.But while it is still obvious that Gainsbourgh is trying to play Jane, there is no trace whatsoever of Rochester in the character that William Hurt portrays. Hurt, who has proved himself to be a fine actor in many good movies, must have been aware that he was physically and type-wise so miscast that he did not even attempt at playing the Rochester of the novel. His Rochester, besides being blond and blue-eyed, is a soft-spoken, well-mannered nobleman, shy and quiet, slightly queer and eccentric, but basically good-natured and mild. He is so far from being irascible, moody and grim that lines referring to these traits of his character sound absolutely ridiculous. Additionally, during many moments of the movie, Hurt's facial expression leaves one wondering if he is fighting against acute attacks of the sleeping sickness. Particularly in the proposal scene he grimaces like a patient rallying from a general anaesthetic and is hardly able to keep his eyes open. If you compare his Rochester to the strong-willed and charming protagonist of the novel, simply bursting with energy and temperament, it is no wonder that many viewers are disappointed in Hurt's performance. Still, he offends me less than the Rochesters in the '70, '97 and 2006 versions and I would in general rank this Jane Eyre higher than these three other ones. Hurt obviously had the wits to recognise that he could not be the Rochester of the novel and therefore did not try to do so, whereas George C. Scott, Ciaràn Hinds and Toby Stephens thought they could, but failed miserably, and I'd rather watch a character other than Rochester than a Rochester who is badly played. And I'd rather watch a Jane Eyre movie which leaves out many lines of the novel but does not invent new ones than a version which uses modernised dialogues which sound as if they could be uttered by a today's couple in a Starbucks café. Of course this Jane Eyre is a failure, but at least it is an inoffensive one, which is more than one can say of the '97 and 2006 adaptations. I would therefore not desist anyone from watching this adaptation: You will not find Jane Eyre, but at least you will find a beautifully made movie.