Jane Eyre (1996)

The Franco Zeffereli film of Jane Eyre starts out well enough: the blind cruelty of Gatewood and harshness of Lowood are beautifully shot and true to the spirit of the book. Anna Paquin is a believably precocious and strong-willed young Jane. As the adult Jane, on the surface, Charlotte Gainsbourg certainly looks the picture: lantern-jawed, skinny as a beanpole and clearly not a day over 19. But we hardly get time to evaluate her acting ability before the film is ruined by the arrival of a miscast Rochester. William Hurt is too blond, too old and too sensitive; whispering his lines and mooning over the bland Jane. Worse, the chemistry between the leads is nonexistent. The intense intellectual connection between poor but self-possessed Jane and the brooding Rochester is the cornerstone of the book's appeal. The script is a fairly faithful adaptation of Bronte's work, but it's almost painful to watch the two actors say her words while pretending they are in love. Watch only for the cinematography & sets, or if you are a die-hard Jane Eyre fan. For those that haven't read the book, this is a poor introduction.

With style, charm, and humor to spare, this film was among the top echelon of movies from 1996. The characters in this film have a lot of depth, and that makes all the difference. In the end, the audience gets a casserole of film elements and little of the satisfaction that comes from watching these types of movies. This is a story about a place most people might not be able to conceive. It is a powerful film, but I doubt I will ever want to watch it again. Many scenes do not feel believable, but great performances help to enhance this amazing story. All the characters struggle against a system that has perpetuated falsehoods -- many falsehoods. 7/10.

I have loved the A&E version of Jane Eyre since I was a child. The story always spoke to me. I very recently finally read the book and was even more blown away and in awe. It is brilliant, fiction at it's finest! After finishing the book I re-watched the A&E version, the newest version with Mia Wasikowska, and the BBC version. All of which are quite brilliant! I was going through netflix and saw this. I got excited that there was a version I had yet to see and I watched it. It didn't take me long to realize it was ridiculous. The plot strays from the book far too much. The writing of the script was terrible. The acting was terrible. Both Jane and Edward are very passionate people. Jane is rather subdued, but still, when reading the novel and in the other film adaptions, you can catch glimpses of her true character. Both of them in this film were like wooden dolls. So lacking in feeling or conviction. And St. John was shoved in here like an afterthought. His part was nothing like how it was supposed to be and his proposal was mind numbingly, hilariously out of character! I laughed through a great deal of this film. And I don't even feel bad saying that.

This 1996 movie was the first adaptation of Jane Eyre that I ever watched and when I did so I was appalled by it. So much of the novel had been left out and I considered William Hurt to be terribly miscast as Rochester. Since then I have watched all the other noteworthy adaptations of the novel, the three short versions of '44, '70 and '97 and the three mini series of '73, '83 and 2006, and I have noticed that there are worse adaptations and worse Rochesters.This is without doubt the most exquisite Jane Eyre adaptation as far as cinematography is concerned. Director Franco Zerifferelli revels in beautiful long shots of snow falling from a winter sky, of lonely Rochester standing on a rock, and of Jane looking out of the window - but he is less good at telling a story and bringing characters to life. In addition, his script merely scratches the surface of the novel by leaving out many important scenes. As a consequence the film does not show the depth and complexity of the relationship between Jane and Rochester, and sadly it does also not include the humorous side of their intercourse. There are a number of short conversations between Rochester and Jane, each of them beautifully staged, but the couple of sentences they exchange do not suffice to show the audience that they are drawn to each other. We know that they are supposed to fall in love, but we never see it actually happen. The scene in which Rochester wants to find out Jane's reaction to his dilemma by putting his case in hypothetical form before her after the wounded Mason has left the house is completely missing, and the farewell scene, the most important scene - the climax - of the novel is reduced to four sentences. Zerifferelli does not make the mistake other scriptwriters have made in substituting their own poor writing for Brontë's superb lines, neither are crucial scenes completely changed and rewritten, but he makes the less offensive but in the end similarly great mistake of simply leaving many important scenes out. What remains is just a glimpse of the novel, which does no justice to Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece.The cast is a mixed bag: While Fiona Shaw is an excellent Mrs Reed, Anna Paquin's young Jane is more an ill-mannered, pout Lolita than a lonely little girl, longing for love. The ever-reliable Joan Plowright makes a very likable, but far too shrewd Mrs Fairfaix, and one cannot help feeling that Billie Whitelaw is supposed to play the village witch instead of plain-looking, hard-working Grace Poole. Charlotte Gainsbourgh as the grown-up heroine, however, is physically a perfect choice for playing Jane Eyre. Looking every bit like 18, thin and frail, with irregular, strong features, she comes closest to my inner vision of Jane than any other actress in that role. And during the first 15 minutes of her screen time I was enchanted by her performance. Gainsbourgh manages well to let the audience guess at the inner fire and the strong will which are hidden behind the stoic mask. But unfortunately the script never allows her to expand the more passionate and lively side of Jane's character any further. As a result of leaving out so many scenes and shortening so much of the dialogues, Gainsbourgh's portrayal of Jane must necessarily remain incomplete and therefore ultimately unsatisfactory. This is a pity, as with a better script Charlotte Gainsbourgh might have been as good a Jane as Zelah Clarke in the '83 version.But while it is still obvious that Gainsbourgh is trying to play Jane, there is no trace whatsoever of Rochester in the character that William Hurt portrays. Hurt, who has proved himself to be a fine actor in many good movies, must have been aware that he was physically and type-wise so miscast that he did not even attempt at playing the Rochester of the novel. His Rochester, besides being blond and blue-eyed, is a soft-spoken, well-mannered nobleman, shy and quiet, slightly queer and eccentric, but basically good-natured and mild. He is so far from being irascible, moody and grim that lines referring to these traits of his character sound absolutely ridiculous. Additionally, during many moments of the movie, Hurt's facial expression leaves one wondering if he is fighting against acute attacks of the sleeping sickness. Particularly in the proposal scene he grimaces like a patient rallying from a general anaesthetic and is hardly able to keep his eyes open. If you compare his Rochester to the strong-willed and charming protagonist of the novel, simply bursting with energy and temperament, it is no wonder that many viewers are disappointed in Hurt's performance. Still, he offends me less than the Rochesters in the '70, '97 and 2006 versions and I would in general rank this Jane Eyre higher than these three other ones. Hurt obviously had the wits to recognise that he could not be the Rochester of the novel and therefore did not try to do so, whereas George C. Scott, Ciaràn Hinds and Toby Stephens thought they could, but failed miserably, and I'd rather watch a character other than Rochester than a Rochester who is badly played. And I'd rather watch a Jane Eyre movie which leaves out many lines of the novel but does not invent new ones than a version which uses modernised dialogues which sound as if they could be uttered by a today's couple in a Starbucks café. Of course this Jane Eyre is a failure, but at least it is an inoffensive one, which is more than one can say of the '97 and 2006 adaptations. I would therefore not desist anyone from watching this adaptation: You will not find Jane Eyre, but at least you will find a beautifully made movie.