Jane Eyre: The Movie

Last week I saw the new movie "Jane Eyre" and I was totally enraptured by this new version of one of the  most beautiful and famous books in the English language.  Is there any other book that most of us know practically by heart and as we are watching the movie can predict exactly what will happen next?  I never get tired of anticipating the moment that Jane meets Mr. Rochester for the first time, or the moment that she saves his life after his bed has been set on fire, or the dramatic wedding scene in the church. And the heartbreaking scenes from Jane's childhood, when she is sent to Lowood school and is forced to stand on the chair all day, or goes to sleep clutching the hand of her only friend Helen Burns.  These are iconic images that stay in our minds.

 Mia Wasikowska as Jane Eyre

Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester

Jamie Bell as St. John Rivers

Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax

The film is beautifully directed and the acting is fabulous, with Mia Wasikowska as Jane, Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester,  Jamie Bell as St. John Rivers and Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax.  The setting of the book and the film, the wild Yorkshire moors in England, is almost as important as any other aspect of this film.  The filmmakers got it right, and rendered it beautifully, enhancing the passion and the loneliness of the story and that of the hero and heroine.  There is a fierceness and a passion in "Jane Eyre."  The wildness of the Yorkshire moors lives on every page of this book.  This new film version of Charlotte Bronte's masterpiece beautifully captures that fierceness and passion, of both the land and the characters.