Customer Reviews
Jane Eyre with Hinds & Moreton - brilliant!! - By: Romance-lover!, 05 Apr 2008 
I know this isn't faithful to the book but it's by far my favourite adaptation of this classic by Charlotte Bronte. Ciaran Hinds is utterly mesmerising as the tortured Edward Rochester & the scenes between him & Jane are captivating. I've watched it over & over & over & love it more every time! Thoroughly recommended if you like a good love story!
At least they got Pilot right! - By: JB, 10 Jan 2008 
This 1997 TV production is callled "Jane Eyre", but except for a similarity to the plot of the novel there is preciously little in this film to remind you that you are indeed watching an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's literary masterpiece. How the managed to get every single character of the novel wrong - except for Pilot, who is well cast - is a complete mystery to me, but they did. This is the more a pity because with Samantha Morton & Ciaràn Hinds they had two good actors, who even physicallly fit their roles well, but, alas, the greatest talent is of no avail when the concept of the characters is as wrong as in this adaptation. Samantha Morton - young, delicate & plain enough - looks like Jane Eyre, but does not play Jane Eyre. Her Jane is far too bold, even disrespectful at times, self-confident & self-satisfied, bossy & pert. Gone is the interesting duality of Jane's character in the novel, her outward shyness, guardedness & modesty on the one hand & her fire & passion on the other. Morton's Jane speaks her mind boldly right from the beginning & never stops doing so throughout the film. There is no subtlety in her performance, her Jane undergoes no change & no development. The same is sadly also true for the character of Mr. Rochester. Believe it or not, but they indeed managed to turn one of the most interesting & complex figures of English literature into a brute & a bully. Luckily Ciaràn Hinds possesses some charisma, but otherwise nothing links him to the eloquent & fascinating character of the novel. Not the slightest attempt was made to explore the depths of Rochester's character, his many contradicting facets, his moodiness, his inner struggle, his humour & his tenderness. The Rochester of the novel is admittedly insolent & harsh at times, but never the unrefined, snarling brute Ciaràn Hinds makes him. Yet Hinds is even worse at playing the loving Rochester, & the only feeling he manages to convey is lust.
Unfortunately the misrepresentation of the characters is not limited to the leading roles: Blanche, besides being blonde, is not in the least haughty enough, not to mention the fact that she is kind to Adèle, St. John is alll smiles & kindness, & the role of Mrs. Fairfax has been unnecessarily puffed up, probably due to the fact that she is played by dear Gemma Jones. Yet some scenes less with Mrs. Fairfax fussing around & some scenes more between Jane & Rochester would have been very helpful to make the audience understand why the two latter falll in love in the first place.
As far as language is concerned this production is another victim of the delusion of some scriptwriters who either think that they can improve on Charlotte Brontë's brilliant language or that her 19th century English has to be simplified to become digestible for a modern audience. The result is that the dialogues are severely changed or replaced by the scriptwriter's own banal lines. In either case they have lost alll the charm, sparkle & brilliance of the dialogues in the novel. Poor misguided scriptwriter Richard Hawley even deemed it necessary to make Rochester introduce one of his most famous lines - the line about the string that inextricably binds Jane & him together - with the words: "I know it may sound silly but...." No, Mr Hawley, if somebody sounds silly here, it is definitely NOT Charlotte Brontë'! Another capital error of judgement - & unfortunately also an insult to good taste - is the way they rewrote the farewell scene between Jane & Rochester after the aborted wedding, a scene, by the by, which in alll the modern adaptations has received a particularly brutal treatment. Whereas in the latest Jane Eyre production of 2006 that scene was an outrage to Charlotte Brontë's Jane, the way the scene is handled in this adaptation is an outrage to Charlotte Brontë's Rochester. What? Rochester insulting Jane when she intends to leave him, bullying her, throwing her suitcase over the banister & telling her to go if she does not love him enough to stay? Absolutely ridiculous! It is hard to imagine what has gotten into the filmmakers to produce such rubbish as this.
This is the worst, but there are many others scenes which are similarly absurd & ludicrous: the first scene of Rochester gallloping in slow motion through the mist before he fallls into brook, Grace Poole coming out of the lunatic's room to sniff at Mason's wounds like a wild beast, Rochester sitting on the top of an archway of Thornfield as if he were the court jester & Mason jumping on horseback over the church fence to prevent a marriage of which he has heard only heavens knows how.
Equallly lamentable is the filmmakers' inability to represent the correct social behaviour of the 1850ies. Rochester & Jane are far too disrespectful to each other at first & later far too hot. Sentences like "I feel that your passions are aroused" are appropriate for "Sex in the City", but not for a costume drama, let alone Jane Eyre. Obviously the filmmakers decided not to bother at alll - neither about being true to the novel, nor about portraying the novel's area accurately. The result is a sad failure - as both a film & an adaptation of Jane Eyre. The only fact with which the makers of this Jane Eyre can console themselves is that the BBC failed even worse in the subsequent production of Jane Eyre in 2006.
Mixed feelings about this take on an English classic - By: cathy earnshaw, 17 Oct 2007 
Robert Young's take on Jane Eyre from 1997 is the fourth adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel, following ones starring Sorcha Cusack & Michael Jayston (1973), Zelah Clarke & Timothy Dalton (1983) & Charlotte Gainsbourg & William Hurt (1995). Brontëmania reached new heights last year when a fifth adaptation aired on British TV screens, this time with Toby Stephens & Ruth Wilson in the leading roles.
Young - perhaps egged on by the resounding success of other televised literary love stories (such as Andrew Davies' Pride & Prejudice a few years previously) - chooses to centre on the relationship between Jane & Mr. Rochester in his film. Other aspects of the novel - such as its feminism which was boundary-breaking for novel-writing & sexual relations at that time - are thus inevitably dampened down. He seems also to be aiming for a wider, more democratic audience by chiselling out the literary language & simplifying their exchanges. With these facets of the novel remaining off-stage, then, the success of the film rests overbearingly on the performances of the two protagonists & their on-screen chemistry. And unfortunately this Jane Eyre (Samantha Morton) & this Edward Rochester (Ciarán Hinds), both individuallly & as a pairing, fail to do justice to the spirit of the novel. More importantly, their takes on the characters do not make for as compelling a love story as could have been the case.
Samantha Morton is an actress who is often praised for her courage & talent in playing hard, unhappy roles, but is sometimes bemoaned for a lack of humour in her acting. There was no evidence of this absence here; in fact, her Jane is more often wry smiles & playful lightness than not. Her delivery of the devoted & earnest moments is often overwrought; in short, we are not able to take the masochism in her character more seriously. Ciarán Hinds, who played Captain Wentworth in the acclaimed 1995 BBC version of Jane Austen's Persuasion, presents a mercilessly gruff & resentful Rochester; the unrelenting harshness of his address makes him an excessively self-pitying character, preventing the viewer from better appreciating why Jane - an embodiment of goodness, independence & strength in overcoming hardship - should be attracted to him. There is a good enough chemistry between them (although their first kiss is a rather strange one), but a subtly smiling Jane & a one-sided Rochester make for a curiously empty & unreal passion.
The most positive trait of this film would have to be the dramatic intensity of the church scene. It might not prove to be the best adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel, but it remains worth watching, particularly if you are studying the novel, to see the changes it undergoes in the transition to screen.
Jane Who? - By: Riffraff, 18 Dec 2006 Okay, so I'm a fan of the Dalton/Clarke version. So sue me. For starters, the screen writer had actuallly read the novel, which is more than can be said for Ms Mellor's screenplay for this abomination.
Severely truncated, the story rattles & creaks at the seams--how the devil did Richard Mason find out about the wedding, if Jane's uncle on Madeira never existed? What's worse, the script plays fast & loose with the characters. To wit, St John 'Nicey' Rivers. Most damaging, though, is the near-absence of those battles of wit that spark the attraction between Jane & Rochester in the first place. There isn't a trace of the humor or the subtility--the decorum, if you will--that abounds in the book & heightens tension (sexual & otherwise). Instead of restraint, we see both story & sentiment laid on with a (very large) trowel, & instead of engaging in a game of ambiguity, the characters are lumbered with a coarseness equivalent to the denizens of Coronation Street.
Casting & direction don't help. Samantha Morton portrays an engagingly fey Jane, but Ciaran Hinds as Rochester is not only miscast but poorly directed into the bargain. He seems incapable of delivering the (precious few) softer notes with any kind of credibility & shouts his way out of the dilemma. The viewer is left with the niggling question of what the heck Jane sees in this guy. Something's boiling alright, but it ain't passion.
If you're looking for a good, sensitive screen adaptation of "Jane Eyre," this isn't it with a vengeance.
Wonderfully Emotive - By: Mrs. Angela H. Smith, 16 Sep 2006 I had to get this on region 1, I wanted it so badly. I love the story of Jane Eyre & now own three different versions of it. The timothy dalton version is still my favorite, but this comes a very close second.
Ciaran Hinds is perfect as the not so handsome Rochester, but his passion & feeling is attractive. Samantha Morton gives a great performance as Jane Eyre & you reallly feel the passion & the conflict between both of them, I couldn't reallly say which version is most faithful to the book as its been some time since I read the novel.
