Jude Fawley (Christopher Eccleston) comes from a lower class rural village. He aspires to be educated but is a simple stonemason. He marries country girl Arabella (Rachel Griffiths) thinking she's pregnant. Jude is wrong for the country life and Arabella departs for Australia claiming that she thought she was pregnant and did not trick him. Jude goes off to Christminster where he hopes to go to the university. He is taken by cousin Sue Bridehead (Kate Winslet). The university rejects him and Sue refuses him after he reveals that he's married. She marries the religious Phillotson (Liam Cunningham) but it's a loveless marriage. She and Jude go off together in a life of struggle. Arabella sends him Juey who she claims is his. Jude and Sue have two more children together but their common-law relationship causes problems and ends in tragedy.Director Michael Winterbottom brings some life to this difficult story. He could have made this darker and moodier. He could have played up the star-crossed lovers. He could also put the social structure much more out front. He is blessed with two great actors. Eccleston and Winslet are terrific. This is a fine romantic epic.

"Jude" is an extraordinary film by one of the most daring and amazing director out there ,as Michael Winterbottom. The original novel("Jude the Obscure") is translated in a brilliant script by Hossein Amini and centers on the aspirations of a lower-class man,Jude Fawley(Christopher Ecclestone),who fights to become a university man. After a quick and wrong marriage with an humble country girl,Arabella(Rachel Griffiths), he met his cousin Sue Bridehead(Kate Winslet)an intelligent,beautiful and apparently as unconventional and brave as him. Their passionate love will end tragically though. The film is from the end to the beginning sad and depressing at his best since we see Jude and Sue fight against the Victorian society's beliefs such as a legalized marriage(they only live as a couple)and the impossible aspirations of a lower-class man who would like to become equal to his peers and study at the university. Ultimately their lives will be destroyed by a cruel destiny. Jude is completely coherent to his ideas but Sue is a tormented and fragile woman who,in the end, is not able to came to terms with what she professed at the beginning. In the end, she turns to religion and accepts a life she rejected because she feels guilty. Christoph Ecclestone and Kate Winslet are just superb. Ecclestone is a serious underrated actor who should be in the spotlight. He never misses a beat and gives an amazing performance. Kate Winslet is completely committed to her role and gives a dramatic performance that is devastating. The director gives the a vivid and crude cut and confirms his uncommon abilities to tell a story set in a different era as we're seeing a modern tragedy.His direction is as tormented as his leads and we can't help but have a feeling that he is not afraid to show the crudest side and the terrible contradictions of the Victorian period. my vote is 10/10.

This was a depressing and disturbing movie. I Couldn't get this movie out of my head for a couple days and in a bad way! I wished I would of turned it off before I was so traumatized by it! It's long, cold , depressing and a waste of 2+ hours. The only reason I hung on was for the actors. Kate and Christopher made the best of a terrible story. The director did a great job of putting you right there in the movie. Unfortunately it's not a great place to be. Some of the scenes were just a little overly disturbing for my taste. This movie could of ended an hour earlier and it wouldn't of mattered. I strongly suggest skipping this unless you really want to fell deflated afterward.

This film tells the story of a boy who from his childhood dreamed of becoming more. He hopes to leave the brutal rural world of pig-slaughtering and rolls in the hay for the intellectual world of the university, which to him represents the freedom to think one's own thoughts and to live one's own life.Sadly, his conduct and, more importantly, his opportunities cannot bear his aspirations. When faced with a "pregnant" girlfriend, he marries her, as any "good" man should. When faced with mockery from wealthy undergraduates (a scene all the more odd because it pits two Doctor Who's against each other), Jude tries to prove his intelligence by reciting Latin in a pub, realizing in the end that no matter how much Latin he studies he will always be a laborer to these people. He becomes infatuated by his free-thinking cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is similarly pursuing education and independence and who also rejects Victorian conventionalities about women belonging in the home.Sadly, the two cousins find that they cannot reject the values of their world without dire consequences, for them and for their children.Happily, this film beautifully depicts Sue and Jude's struggles in gorgeous shots of the landscape and rich images of the two leads. Christopher Eccleston gives Jude a warm humanity and Kate Winslet creates a Sue Bridehead whom we easily believe could both rebel against social custom and also be crushed by it. I particularly liked the depiction of the harshness of Victorian life: the working in the rain, the beatings, the cruelty to animals, the pain of childbirth, the lack of privacy endured by poor families. The film is not Masterpiece Theatre (no criticism just a comment on style) and shows us clearly what the university means to Jude and just what he is trying to escape.If you liked "The Remains of the Day," "The Age of Innocence," "Tess" or "The Idiot" (book, I've never seen a film of this), you will appreciate this film and the book, as well.