Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga
(PG-13)
***
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If you think “‘literary classic’ means ‘respectable and dull,’” this umpteenth adaptation of Jane Eyre won’t disappoint, said Tasha Robinson in the A.V. Club. Once again, Charlotte Brontë’s story of forbidden love feels as if it had “all the pointed edges sanded off” before filming began. Maybe moviegoers who hoped for a trendy take would think so, said Karina Longworth in The Village Voice. Though this version proceeds in flashbacks—after we meet young Jane while she’s fleeing from an unidentified threat—its strengths are mostly old-fashioned. Director Cary Fukunaga has mounted a “thoughtful epic” anchored by strong performances and “gorgeous” cinematography. He’s also shaded this story about a 19th-century governess so that it becomes an “emotionally devastating examination of what it really means to choose one’s own way.” Mia Wasikowska as Jane and Michael Fassbender as her volatile suitor “challenge and beguile each other beautifully,” said Christy Lemire in the Associated Press. It’s clearly not society keeping them apart here but “the walls they’ve built up for themselves.” Therefore, “bring tissues.”
