Jane, Not Plain

An inspired Jane Eyre, tepid Water for Elephants

(April 28, 2011) JANE EYRE. Back in college, when I first read novels by Emily and Charlotte Brontë, I thoroughly enjoyed Jane Eyre but passionately embraced Wuthering Heights, which opened my eyes to what seemed like an all-encompassing romanticism. As I’ve gotten older, if not more mature, the darker side of the soul now holds sway over me and Jane Eyre is closer to the sort of material I seek out.

The novel inspired the influential 1979 feminist study of the 19th century novel by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar titled The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. It examines the virgin/whore dichotomy of female characters in novels by women resulting from the dominant male attitude that classified women as either pure and obedient or rebellious and therefore mad.

Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre

GALLERY >

Indeed, it is the darker aspects of the novel that this film adaptation of Jane Eyre so wonderfully captures. Screenwriter Moira Buffini expertly recreates both the spirit and substance of the novel in this filmic translation without twisting the material into something else. In particular, both the critique of the social structure and the Gothic aspects of the novel are preserved. Director Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre) contributes some very clean direction with appropriately beautiful, stark images from cinematographer Adriano Marianelli.

Additionally, the casting of Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland; The Kids Are All Right) as Jane is absolutely inspired, particularly for the qualities of the story that this adaptation emphasizes. Equally good is Michael Fassbinder (Inglourious Basterds; Fish Tank), who creates a lean, cynical and intellectual character with Rochester, whose secrets are revealed with great subtlety.

The story is well known. After a very bleak, Dickensian upbringing where she suffers at the hands of an aunt and a very nasty cousin and experiences oppression at a boarding school, Jane enters into the ambiguous world of Edward Rochester, who employs her as a governess. In many ways, this is a dark coming-of-age story with a Gothic twist, except that Jane always seems more mature than her chronological age.

Despite all the misfortunes she faces, she remains steadfast in her principles. In this regard, Jane is the pure version of the female character. At the same time, though, she is not an obedient woman so, in a way, she embodies some of both sides of the dichotomy noted by Gilbert and Gubar. It is in this regard that Wasikowska particularly shines, embodying both physically and verbally the complex nature that Jane possesses. I cannot imagine after this film that I will ever see any other image when I think of the character.

This is also a love story, however twisted it may seem at times. The final scene of the film, with its stark yet lovely background where Jane and Rochester finally meet again following their personal rupture and the burning of Thornfield Hall, perfectly sums up the spirit of this adaptation. At the same time, it is somehow very romantic. Even the “madwoman” is more fleshed out here than in other versions of this story that I have seen.

I am in love with Jane Eyre all over again. It’s a version for people who have been around the block more than just a few times. Rated PG-13. 120m. At the Minor.

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