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.

I must say that I really loved this version of Jane Eyre. I've seen most of the movies, both old and new and the mini series as well. But I really thought Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens were the best Jane and Rochester couple out of all the versions I've seen. And Andrew Buchan really was a wonderful Mr. Rivers. Whoever did the casting for this version hit it on the nose with their selection. I applaud the BBC again for another great mini-series, no one does drama as well as the BBC. Even if you've seen the other versions out there, this one is worth a watch.

I believe that Jane Eyre (2006) is one of the greatest period dramas of all time, and almost definitely the greatest period romance. There is next to nothing that I would like to criticize about this miniseries. The perfectly written script combines with the marvelous acting to make a brilliant masterpiece that beats every other version of Jane Eyre I've seen (and that is saying something, because I liked the 2011 version very much). Even my brother, one of the harshest movie critics I know and a hater of silly love stories, found himself drawn into the room while my friends and I watched it for our girls night movie, and he proclaimed it an excellent movie. It is perfect – funny, scary, sad, romantic, and (to those who have not read the book) extremely unpredictable.For the purpose of this review, I'll put aside my personal love of Bronte's characters and storyline not only to avoid spoilers, but also so I might analyze aspects of this film itself. It is brilliantly done. To say that Ruth Wilson is impressive in her first real role (right out of acting school) would be an immense understatement. Jane Eyre's reserved nature and intricate mind make her an extremely difficult character to portray on screen, and Wilson accomplishes this task beautifully. She looks the part - somehow she just seems exactly the sort of person the book describes, though I know that's a very opinionated statement. The emotion she is able to deliver to the audience even with her character's reticence is neither too great nor too small. I see almost no flaws in her portrayal of Jane Eyre.I believe I fell in love with Toby Stephens over the course of this series. Readers of the book will attest to the fact that Rochester is "supposed to be ugly." It's one of the biggest problems fans of the book cite when analyzing others who've portrayed this character – Rochester is too handsome or too young, or both. Still, what girl can deny that she secretly hopes he'll be at least a bit attractive? When this Rochester came on the screen, I think many book fans (including myself) were sufficiently pleased with his rough, not-really-that-handsome appearance (forgive me for lack of a better adjective than 'not-really-that-handsome!') But even with this observation comes the worry that he'll not be very likable… after all, we all know that a character's good looks contribute a great deal to his or her likability. By the end of this film however… I didn't remember ever having considered him anything but handsome. The character is charming, interesting, and on several occasions absolutely hysterical. My whole living room was laughing at some of his conversations with Jane. He flat out nailed the role of Edward Rochester. I'm convinced someone charmed the character to rise off the pages of the book, and he happened to take the form of Toby Stephens. It is that good.The side characters are all very good as well, but the real commendation should go to the screen-writers. Film adaptations of books obviously need to have discrepancies, and there is a science to making this work well. Some seem to pull the dialogue right from the pages, word for word, creating a rather restricted atmosphere. Other times you feel in your bones that the dialogue is too modern. Often, as well, plot points are jumbled together within the script in a rabid attempt to get everything said, so that the script sounds like an eleventh grader reading out his plot summary for English class. Obviously the length of this film made it possible to gradually introduce and develop each plot point, but that takes nothing away from the brilliant dialogue with which this was done. I felt like I was looking through a window into 19th century Britain. The makers of this film brought Charlotte Bronte's characters to life in the most brilliant way possible.It's about the time where I generally find something – anything – to criticize, but I can think of nothing. Lovers of the book should have nothing to complain about, since I feel that it contained almost every scene from the book. If I had to name one problem… I suppose it would be young Jane. I love Georgie Henley, but I do admit that her acting seemed a bit forced, and didn't really capture the essence of young Jane. Still, Georgie Henley looks so much like Ruth Wilson (I marveled at that for about twenty minutes) that I feel I probably would have made that casting choice as well.All things considered, this is the closest thing to a perfect period drama I have ever seen. Miniseries such as this one have the unique privilege to be able to contain nearly every plot point, since they are allowed to be long, and are thus generally very good and well-liked by book fans. This one in particular just seems to do everything a half step better than the rest. It is truly excellent. Watch it, see for yourself, and enjoy!

This adaptation of Jane Eyre is undeniably a controversial one. Many reviewers have pointed out the many shortcomings which I will not got into in much detail here since other reviewers have already done so. They are (in a nutshell):Ruth Wilson looks wrong for the part: She does - They changed vital parts of the story and included crappy modern scenes like the Ouija Board and the bedroom scene: They did - They modernised some of the language and therefore ruined parts of the dialog: TrueHowever (and it's a big however) they got one part of the script right, and luckily for them, it's the most important part: The very careful fleshing out of the relationship between Jane and Rochester. Another thing they got perfectly right: The lead actors. Yes, Ruth Wilson is too tall and too fleshy to play Jane (by no means fat but Jane is supposed to be tiny and thin as a rake and Ruth is just a normal girl). But she has enormous acting skills and gets Janes character to a tee. And I cannot tell you how brilliant Toby Stephens is. He looks right for Rochester I think, he even has the oft-mentioned "shaggy black mane". Others have claimed he's too attractive but I think he's just right. He isn't ugly for sure but he has the sort of face which seems unattractive at first sight and then starts to grow on you until you find it looks attractive after all. Which is EXACTLY what Rochesters visage is supposed to do. I also agree that his Rochester is a bit too nice. But on the other hand, I much prefer this to getting a too rude Rochester that leaves you at a loss to understand why Jane would like him. And Wilson and Stephens are one of the few pairs (together with Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton) who get the very very subtle humour that the two characters share right. And many of the other adaptations shorten the end to an unpardonable degree (the worst being the latest adaptation which allows 1 minute for the last meeting of Jane and Rochester). Not so this one, the ending is intensely romantic and touching. As it should. Many people have a favourite line from the book and I'm afraid to say mine is: "Am I hideous, Jane?" – "Very, sir. You always were you know." I don't like to do without that and they kept it in… So basically this is a flawed adaptation that is salvaged by two fantastic leads and the large amount of screen time that they are allowed together. Given that I don't mind (well I do mind but not too much) that Rochester didn't play the Gypsy woman himself (a thing I've always found to be a credibility stretch even in the book) or the unnecessary amount of sexing up which culminates in the intensely sexy but completely wrong bedroom scene… I'm willing to forgive all these faults because they got the most important thing right. They could have kept closer to the book and it would have all amounted to nothing if the romance leaves you feeling flat and cold. But luckily, that was the one mistake they avoided making.