They make their unlikely romance believable. Fassbender is incredibly sexy as the man raging against a fate he cannot unburden himself of yet shows an ironic decorum in polite society. Wasikowska is quiet, keeping to her station, but her reactions to Rochester's wooing when alone show the bloom of first love and she is never cowed in coversation. The material is ripe for delirious melodrama but Fukunaga uses a restraint that allows the characters and their reactions to extreme situations to shine through. But everything about life in Rochester's estate is a mystery - he seems to be wooing Blanche Ingram (Imogen Poots, "28 Weeks Later," "Solitary Man"), a woman more his equal strange things, including a fire in his bedroom, happen at night and Jane is called to tend the serious wounds of an uninvited guest who is dispatched hastily the next morning. But Jane's talents, intellect and backbone have clearly engaged him and it doesn't take long before the young girl is lost in romantic reverie. Fairfax (Judi Dench), the first adult to have ever shown Jane kindness. He has an odd relationship with his charge, Adele (quite obviously the spawn of a paid assignation) and little patience for his housekeeper, Mrs.
When she startles his horse he is glowering and fails to introduce himself. Jane introduces herself as Jane Elliot and remains as much a mystery to the Rivers as she and Rochester were to each other, but once the serious cleric finds a humble school teaching position for Jane, it is clear he hopes to weave her into the fabric of his future. John Rivers (Jamie Bell, "Billy Elliot," "The Eagle"), and his sisters Diana (Holliday Grainger) and Mary (Tamzin Merchant, 2005's "Pride & Prejudice") who look upon her company as entertainment. The film opens with Jane (Mia Wasikowska, "Alice in Wonderland," "The Kids Are Alright") frantically departing Thornfield Hall, the landscape highlighting her isolation, finally finding shelter at the home of a cleric, St.
The story is well known, but here the bulk of the action is framed as a flash back. He only stumbles adding a note of mysticism to his climax which is awkward and entirely unnecessary. Fukunaga, working with Moira Buffini's adaptation of the charlotte Brontë novel, has made a period film lush in its details but stark in its lead characters' outlooks. The contrast of monied society against harsh rural landscapes informs the passions which arise beneath bred restraint in both Jane and Rochester.
Following up his illegal immigrant/gang war saga "Sin Nombre" with yet another version of "Jane Eyre" would seem an odd choice for director Cary Fukunaga, but in so doing the filmmaker proves his versatility and a talent for using time and place to establish characters.