Name: Retro Film Review: Jane Eyre (1996)
Item: Jane Eyre
Rating: 60
Author: @drax

(source:tmdb.org)

In mid 1990s Hollywood was launching Jane Austen novels' screen adaptations with such tempo leading many to believe that in very near future there wouldn't be any Austen novels left to adapt. Thankfully, Jane Austen wasn't the only 19th Century English female novelist, so Hollywood studios had more options in exploiting Jane Austen craze. One of those novelists was Charlotte Bronte, whose novel Jane Eyre had been adapted for screen many times (including the holodeck sequences in Star Trek: Voyager). In 1996 new version was directed by Franco Zeffirrelli.

The novel begins with 10-year old orphan girl Jane Eyre (played by Anna Paquin) being sent by her cruel aunt (played by Fiona Shaw) to cold and strict Lowood school. Despite all the hardships, Jane Eyre gets friends and enough education to become governess Year later, adult Jane Eyre (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) is hired to teach the daughter of Mr. Rochester (played by William Hurt), extremely wealthy, but emotionally distant country aristocrat. Despite his seemingly cold demeanour and mature age, Jane Eyre begins to experience some feelings for her employer. In the meantime, she finds about Rochester being engaged to beautiful aristocrat Blanche Ingram (played by Elle Macpherson) and some dark, unexplained secret that haunts Rochester's estate.

Compared with Jane Austen's novels, Bronte's Jane Eyre is more realistic, since it deals more explicitly with 19th Century class differences and some nastier forms of human behaviour. However, with its blend of mystery, romance and dark, isolated settings it could serve as perfect illustration for the phrase "Gothic novel". Zeffirelli, Italian director famous for his work in the opera and screen adaptations of Shakespeare, nevertheless opts for bleakness more suitable for screen adaptations of Emile Zola's novels than those that take inspiration from Romanticist literature. The sky is always cloudy, the locations look old and dirty and the costumes vary only in shades of grey. The casting is very good for this kind of film - Charlotte Gainsbourg with her long neck looks like embodiment of early 19th Century beauty ideals, while William Hurt handles English accent credibly. On the other hand, some other names – Joan Plowright, Anna Paquin and Elle Macpherson - seem to be here only to provide names on the billboard and their presence in the film doesn't leave much of an impression. Although far from being the best adaptation of the classic novel, Jane Eyre would nevertheless come handy for all those who want to see a little bit more of the old literature on screen.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on January 13th 2004)