DVD : Jane Eyre (BBC) [2007] [2006]

Rating: - utterly fantastic
I adore watching this, no matter how many times I watch it I laugh and cry it has the most wonderful actors (Ruth and Toby). Better than any other version.... a must for any period drama lover.

---

Rating: - no plain Jane
just the most believable Jane i've seen. Ruth Wilson has that special beauty and strength of character that makes the romance convincing. personally i don't believe the love story would be believable if Jane were really really plain and could just win the heart of the guy who's seen everything with "inner beauty". and the rest of the production is just fabulous. don't really like Adele though. she should have been played by someone younger, smaller and prettier.

---

Rating: - Move over Darcy and Rhett!
I am absolutely addicted to this version of Jane Eyre, having watched it another 4 times this last week alone! And I'm not ashamed to admit it either! It's perfect in every way and there's nothing left out of importance. O.K. it could have done with showing more of the young Jane at Lowood Institution, but it wasn't a necessity.

This tells the story of Jane Eyre, a poor, downtrodden girl who after becoming an orphan as a baby, is sent to live with her Aunt and Uncle and their children. The Uncle passes away and Jane is left to the cruelty of her Aunt and cousins. After 10 years of bad treatment, her Aunt sends her to Lowood School and turns her back on Jane. Jane stays at Lowood for eight years when she finally manages to escape by advertising for a job as Governess. Off she trots to Thornfield to care for and teach Adele.

The master of the house, (Mr Rochester), is always away from home, and very rarely stays more than a few days at a time. But this soon changes when he meets Jane. Their relationship blossoms but always in an unspoken way. Mr Rochester is a moody, brooding man and one can never tell what mood he'll be in from one day til the next. He harbours a dark secret, one which could ruin his relationship with Jane, as well as his many admirers and friends.

Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson who play the leads are perfectly cast and you can really believe their love story is real. The chemistry is simply sizzling! The best scenes are when Rochester confesses his love for Jane under the tree and proposes, and when he is trying to get Jane to run away with him to his villa, and also when Jane finally goes back to him after being separated from him. Oh, who am I kidding, I love EVERY scene they're in together!

The rest of the cast are fantastic too. Adele is sweet as is Mrs Fairfax the house keeper. Miss Ingram and her mother are perfect too, they are pure nastiness and houghty with it. The sets are beautiful as are the costumes. It brought the book to life just as I had imagined it when I read it.

This is truly an amazing version and my 1983 copy with Timothy Dalton is now in second place! Do yourself a favour and buy it, especially if you have a loved one who adores romances. I will be getting many more pleasurable viewings out of my copy, that's for sure!

---

Rating: - Very good version of a great book
I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this version of Jane Eyre. I'm quite picky over TV productions of my favourite books - for example, I'm no great fan of the Firth/Ehle P&P (an almost sacreligious version, in my opinion) - but this production of JE, I feel, has got very close to the essence of the novel. A bit over-blown at times, but then so is JE! It was given a noughties' treatment, without destroying the overall feel of the novel. The chemistry between Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens built beautifully. And a good, solid supporting cast, full of reliable regulars.

I've given it 4 not 5 stars, however, because of a couple of reservations: I thought the Jane/St John relationship, so important in the book, could have been handled much better thereby improving the overall production. Their final encounter, when she almost agrees to marry him then hears Rochester's supernatural 'Jane' x 3 (and what happened to her impassioned response???), is one of the best bits of the novel. And why the Cape and not India? Also, why was Blanche Ingram a blue-eyed blonde? Rochester's choice of Blanche as his 'false' bride is significant (and cruel, both to Jane and also Blanche, despite the latter's character), as physically she must remind him of Bertha. I think Charlotte Bronte intended her reader to recognise the shared moral emptiness of Blanche and Bertha partly through their similarities in appearance. Oh, well, that's the lit crit out of the way! Mind you, how could anyone accuse Toby Stephens of not being handsome?

I remember the Jayston/Cussack version with great affection. I may buy both then compare.

---

Rating: - mills and broonte
She stared into Mr Rochester's black opal eyes and marvelled, he barely looked half his forty years and golly, what a charming manner and a way with children he had, despite what contemporary literature had lead her to believe. As she fell into his manful embrace, large chunks of her life story fell away too, who needs all that bildungsroman stuff when what josephine public is really interested in is bursting bodices? Even Mr St John Rivers now seemed to be an alright chap, even if he was a bit of a stick in the mud, all that supposed terrifying Evangelical bullying faded like so many eccles cakes into the ether.

This might have bothered Jane, after all, she allegedly had a mind like a 'lighted heath' - but no, she'd clearly been at the valium because she'd gone all quiet and mild and even discovering Mrs R. up in the loft with the squirrels merely prompted a nice little stroll out in the peak district, rather than three days of starvation and spiritual upheaval, quaking beneath God's well-impressive omnipotent sky...

'jane jane jane' said Rochester, without moving his lips, which was cleverly explained by the screenwriter through an extended burble about twins that Ms. Bronte had forgot to put in her original book. Indeed, let's have a scene with an ouija board while we're at it.

Tish and pish, the naysayers said - tis TV, and reet entertaining like, tha's got to change sum bits as t'original novel is dense with symbolism and unconvincing cross-dressing - and in all fairness, it's an ok way to pass a rainy sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, we could hardly wait for the forthcoming adaptation of 'Wuthering Heights' in which Heathcliff becomes a sherry-drinking philanthropist, and everyone holds hands and skips......