Jane Eyre

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There’s a certain sense of incompletion to the latest incarnation of “Jane Eyre” – a palpable breezing-through of pivotal plot developments and time jumps that keeps the film from achieving a sweeping, satisfying totality. But director Cary Fukunaga (“Sin Nombre”) has greater and more interesting ambitions than to simply deliver one more sweeping costume drama. Building greatly upon the script by Moira Buffini, he offers something darker, something more individualistic, something remarkably un-dusty for being the 28th filmed adaptation of a 164-year-old novel.

Charlotte Brontë’s unassumingly feminist heroine, played here by fair-featured Mia Wasikowska, is as mysterious as ever, a woman of strong passions and ideals, but one who hides behind a wall of austerity forged by a history of abuse. In the performance that will ensure her future in film, Wasikowska tackles Jane’s stoicism with superb restraint, and she’s shatteringly present in emotional scenes where Jane’s principles and human sympathies finally come to blows.

“You transfix me quite,” Jane is told by her coldly dashing employer, Mr. Rochester, who’s introduced in flashback after Jane is seen surviving her wretched aunt (Sally Hawkins) and a nightmarish reform school. In the classic role, the great Michael Fassbender uses stunning intensity to fill the gaps of the screen couple’s underdeveloped attraction, and he makes gold of the dialogue, reminding how old-world language can cause romance to ache and tremble in ways modern fare can’t touch.

And yet, there’s modernity in Fukunaga’s approach – his “Jane Eyre” feels as much an auteur film as one could hope would result from this director-for-hire project (Buffini’s script sat unproduced for years; Fukunaga got the job in 2009). Playing up the story’s Gothic origins, he opts for a marvelous, shadowy aesthetic, comprised of foggy gray exteriors and haunting candle lighting. He downplays elaborate sets and costumes with authentic English gloom. He skirts tidy resolutions for challenging and uncompromising passages. Without explicitly bucking tradition, he makes the old new again.

Jane Eyre
PG-13
Three-and-a-half out of four
Opens tomorrow at the Ritz Five

Recommended Rental

Black Swan
R
Available Tuesday

In the best female performance of 2010, Oscar winner Natalie Portman wows with the degrees of terror, triumph and tender weakness she’s able to convey as a ballerina undone by her pursuit of perfection. Director Darren Aronofsky deftly blends high and low art in this backstage psychodrama, which is even more unnervingly delightful the second time around. SPR

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