Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Not So Plain Jane

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Here's something to admit at the start: I have never read Jane Eyre, nor have I ever seen any of the forty-seven (I made that number up but I know it's a lot) previous filmed adaptations. Don't ask me how I made it through years upon years upon years of lit classes with having escaped it, but Brontë remains a blind spot. So I've spent the last year, knowing I'd be seeing Cary Fukunaga's new adaptation with Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, meaning especially hard to get around to at least the book. But I didn't. And I didn't. And then at some point I decided it might be nifty for Fassy to be My First Rochester. (And it was. Twas.)

I lay all that out there because it's through that pool of ignorance that I must wade when offering up any thoughts on how Fukunaga's film and Brontë's text dance. All I have are my impressions of his film. And he made a lovely film. Safer than Sin Nombre to be sure but it must've been a thrill for him to wedge himself inside the rigid walls of the Serious Literary Adaptation That's Been Told Forty-Seven Times Before and find ways to make the material feel alive, because it feels like it was while watching it. He embraces what I gather are the long novel's shifting and often at odds tones - horror, romance, class struggles - fully, making a movie that keeps surprising.

Fukunaga already proved in Sin Nombre that he's a great director with actors, having coaxed astonishing performances out of that film's two young leads, so it feels unfair to him to say how blessed he is here with what Wasikowska and Fassbender are handing him, but damn he was wading in riches. Like with Jake Gyllenhaal I feel as if it's gotten to the point where I can't really talk about Fassy's performances without my fanboyishness over them labeling me a fraud with stars in my eyes with respect to them, and it's probably true to some extent. But Fassbender's so good here I don't care if you think I'm biased! His Rochester's unlike anything I've seen from him yet. Wounded and wounding all at once, his whippet frame arched like one of the twisted branches lining his estate, it's easy to understand why Jane can't let him go, and why he makes her so crazy in the meantime.

In one of my favorite scenes he and Mia size each other up over a drink in a smoky fire-lit room and the camera gives us this glorious two-shot of their heads at opposite sides of the frame, facing each other, that goes on for half a minute or so and you just want to climb up into the projection booth and make out with that strip of film. It's always a pleasure when a director tosses out the tired over the shoulder shot-reverse-shot but when you've got two actors responding as vividly to each other as these two are and your getting to watch it all in such glorious detail all at once it's bliss.

And as good as Fassbender is this is Jane's story, and Wasikowska proves herself again to be an astonishing young talent. Hair pulled taut, make-up-less, all you have is her face and you can't look away from it. You feel all the conflicting passions bubbling under that small plain surface - you feel it and you seem to understand twenty levels of this girl at once. It's wonderful work. And she's supported even further by rich turns from Jamie Bell and Judi Dench (Sally Hawkins amounts to basically a two scene cameo). Jane Eyre is a satisfying feast, rich with literary tradition and a simultaneous modern spark. Good stuff, I says!
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3 comments:

RJ said...

I always find the Bronte books sort of insufferable. It's all depressing girls falling in love with ass holes.

But I'm excited to see this movie.

Ivan said...

If you're becoming a fan of Mia Wasikowska, my I suggest the short film "I Love Sarah Jane" from 2008? She's the object of a teenager's desire--and it's after the zombie apocalypse. Worth seeing.

RJ said...

^ I'm still waiting for 'September' to make its way to the U.S. Such a good movie with her and Xavier Samuel.