Jane Eyre

The fine new Jane Eyre finds its heroine reinvigorated and (like the film itself) free of sentimentality  or girlish romanticism. Director Cary Fukunaga and star Mia Wasikowska give us a Jane for now; Wasikowska's Jane carries the pain of indignities visited upon her as a child but is free of illusions of what it will take to survive in the world with no family and no status. The sharp-eyed, guarded performance that Wasikowska gives here reminds me most of her revelatory work as a troubled teen in the series In Treatment. Both her young gymnast Sophie there and Jane are emotionally wounded and unable to lower their defense mechanisms. Wasikowska nails the almost too-brief moment when Jane acknowledges to herself that she is loved; the moment is more than earned, it's a lifetime in the coming.

Fukunaga's England isn't exactly in the same county as Joe Wright's. There's a dankness and an emptiness to the corridors of Thornfield Hall, the house belonging to Jane's employer Mr. Rochester. (Michael Fassbender). In the scenes where Jane wanders the rainy countryside after fleeing Thornfield there's even a hint of danger. Fassbender plays Rochester with a kind of urgent iciness; in Jane he sees a rescue more than  a person but his secrets and class differences prevent him from opening his heart until it's too late. The scenes between Jane and Rochester have a slow-burning heat, and both lead actors beautifully modulate their confusion at finding themselves in this situation. We're on Jane's side though, since we've already seen a Dickensian treatment of Jane's girlhood in which her best friend at school dies of an illness.  The other man in Jane's life is a young minister (Jamie Bell) who offers kindness but also sees an opportunity in Jane, the chance for the propriety a wife would bring. Jane, unwilling to be perceived as anything but herself,is unwilling to accept being reduced. The final moment of connection is hard-earned, and Fukunaga doesn't labor over it. This Jane Eyre is about the journey, and about the discovery of what kind of life one will accept.