So there's another Jane Eyre adaption doing the rounds and it's really not bad. Certainly better than that awful TV version of Wuthering Heights we had to suffer through a few years back. (I was going to write "last year" until I checked the post and discovered I'd written it in 2009... which scared me a little, to be honest.)
If I had to pick a Brontë sister to lock up in my attic, it'd have to be poor, messed-up Emily. But I'd settle for Charlotte at a pinch. Jane Eyre is a terrific story, filled with passion, tragedy, dark secrets and lashings of wild, windswept moors. Mia Wasikowska's Jane is a spunky heroine, Michael Fassbender walks a fine balance between mutton-chopped he-babe and arrogant cad, Judi Dench turns up and wipes the floor with everybody (well, she is the housekeeper). The lack of comedy Yorkshire accents (remember Tom Hardy's Heathcliff?) was a definite plus too. Almost perfect vowel-sounds from both leads.
If I had to quibble (and sometimes I'm contractually obliged), I'd say the love story could have followed a smoother curve. One minute Jane's simmering with resentment for her brutish master, the next she's throwing herself into his tragic arms. Still, it could have been worse. She might have changed her mind and married the dull preacher (Billy Elliott). If Hollywood gets any more puritanical, that'll be bound to happen one day.
