I had very high hopes for this film, despite thinking it was too soon for another adaptation. I mean, the 2006 BBC miniseries was released less than five years before this one! As much as I love Jane Eyre, I do think think there's such a thing as adaptation overload. I can't help but feel that they could have adapted another work instead.
Overall, my view on the film is that it is a disappointment. It could have been great but it did not meet my expectations. One of my main problems was the structure. The film starts out with Jane fleeing Thornfield and being found by the Rivers. Any scenes from before that point are flashbacks, occasionally coming back to a scene in the "present" at Moor House. I remember reading about this choice before the film came out and being hesitant, but I thought it might come out better than I expected. Unfortunately, it did not. The flashback structure was confusing for my friends who did not read the book. To me, it was just an annoyance. I get that they were trying to do something different, but it just didn't work for me in practice. I think that the film could have benefited from about 10-20 extra minutes of run-time. A lot of the explanations and backstories are cut out. What really bothered me about this is that it looked like more things were actually originally filmed, but left on the cutting room floor. The DVD confirmed my suspicions on some of this- plenty of deleted scenes on it should have been left in the film, IMO! I do not know why some of them were cut. Because I saw the film with several people who did not read the book, I know that a lot of it was confusing. And for me, even though I knew the backstory, I was just irritated not to see it! One major thing I felt they should have done with extra time would be to show more buildup to Jane and Rochester's relationship. Some of their scenes together are great, but they needed more of these before they actually got engaged to show and explain their growing attraction more.
As to the actors, I found much of the acting to be understated. In some cases I liked this approach more than in others. Mia Wasikowska is not plain, but I thought they made her look the part well enough in terms of age and stature. I found her acting, however, to be underwhelming. I thought her performance was too restrained. In the proposal scene, in particular, I thought she held back too much. I don't want Jane to be over the top, but I wanted a little more passion. A lot of focus in this version seemed to be put on Jane wanting freedom and developing into a woman, but I could have done without the scene of her examining the painting of a naked lady. Not that I had any issues with the picture, but the scene accomplished nothing (that time could have been better spent elsewhere) and this "nude image" was part of the reason the film got a PG-13 rating. While Michael Fassbender was also a bit more restrained than some other actors (especially compared to Timothy Dalton, my favorite), I liked his performance more than Mia's. The two did have good chemistry, but there just weren't enough scenes to show them falling in love. Bertha, I felt to have not enough of a presence. Grace Poole was really just in the background and so there was never any of Jane suspecting her. Bertha herself was not as menacing as she could have been. I suppose they did not want to be offensive but she just wasn't scary enough. The Rivers siblings were all good in their roles, but I was not a fan of the change made to their relationship with Jane.
I don't want to make it seem like I completely hated this film, because I didn't. I thought that the scenes of Jane's childhood were particularly well-done, especially given the short time-frame. Many individual scenes were great. On the whole, I just found it to be slightly lacking. I want a director's cut!
Overall, my view on the film is that it is a disappointment. It could have been great but it did not meet my expectations. One of my main problems was the structure. The film starts out with Jane fleeing Thornfield and being found by the Rivers. Any scenes from before that point are flashbacks, occasionally coming back to a scene in the "present" at Moor House. I remember reading about this choice before the film came out and being hesitant, but I thought it might come out better than I expected. Unfortunately, it did not. The flashback structure was confusing for my friends who did not read the book. To me, it was just an annoyance. I get that they were trying to do something different, but it just didn't work for me in practice. I think that the film could have benefited from about 10-20 extra minutes of run-time. A lot of the explanations and backstories are cut out. What really bothered me about this is that it looked like more things were actually originally filmed, but left on the cutting room floor. The DVD confirmed my suspicions on some of this- plenty of deleted scenes on it should have been left in the film, IMO! I do not know why some of them were cut. Because I saw the film with several people who did not read the book, I know that a lot of it was confusing. And for me, even though I knew the backstory, I was just irritated not to see it! One major thing I felt they should have done with extra time would be to show more buildup to Jane and Rochester's relationship. Some of their scenes together are great, but they needed more of these before they actually got engaged to show and explain their growing attraction more.
As to the actors, I found much of the acting to be understated. In some cases I liked this approach more than in others. Mia Wasikowska is not plain, but I thought they made her look the part well enough in terms of age and stature. I found her acting, however, to be underwhelming. I thought her performance was too restrained. In the proposal scene, in particular, I thought she held back too much. I don't want Jane to be over the top, but I wanted a little more passion. A lot of focus in this version seemed to be put on Jane wanting freedom and developing into a woman, but I could have done without the scene of her examining the painting of a naked lady. Not that I had any issues with the picture, but the scene accomplished nothing (that time could have been better spent elsewhere) and this "nude image" was part of the reason the film got a PG-13 rating. While Michael Fassbender was also a bit more restrained than some other actors (especially compared to Timothy Dalton, my favorite), I liked his performance more than Mia's. The two did have good chemistry, but there just weren't enough scenes to show them falling in love. Bertha, I felt to have not enough of a presence. Grace Poole was really just in the background and so there was never any of Jane suspecting her. Bertha herself was not as menacing as she could have been. I suppose they did not want to be offensive but she just wasn't scary enough. The Rivers siblings were all good in their roles, but I was not a fan of the change made to their relationship with Jane.
I don't want to make it seem like I completely hated this film, because I didn't. I thought that the scenes of Jane's childhood were particularly well-done, especially given the short time-frame. Many individual scenes were great. On the whole, I just found it to be slightly lacking. I want a director's cut!