Review: Jane Eyre (1996)

I first read Jane Eyre for summer reading for school one year and this was the first adaptation that I watched (which we coincidentally watched in class). I'm going to warn you now: Jane Eyre is not my favorite book; it's not the most uplifting book that I have read, and, this will be a bit of a spoiler, but I'm not quite sure what Jane sees in Mr. Rochester. But I rewatched this adaptation, and here's what I thought.

Box Art

Synopsis

Young Jane Eyre was sent away from her cruel Aunt Reed to go to school at Lowood school. Ten years later, she gets a job as a governess at Thornfield Hall, which holds many secrets.

Characters

Fans of Persuasion (1995) will recognize Amanda Root as Miss Temple and Samuel West as St. John Rivers. Other than those two, I don't think that there were other actors/actresses that I recognized from other period dramas

Charlotte Gainsbourg's Jane I liked. She was a very pretty Jane, yet she was able to appear plain. She was also able to portray Jane's quiet nature well and with emotion. Overall, I'm satisfied with this Jane; I just don't have too much to say about her other than I liked this version of Jane.

Jane meets Mr. Rochester for the first time.

Overall, Mr. Rochester irritated me, but I think that can be applied to any adaptation I see of Jane Eyre. His character always annoyed me: he was, for lack of a better term, a really big jerk in my opinion and he also very seriously lied; I know there are a lot of fans of his out there, but keep in mind this is just my opinion. As far as accuracy to the novel goes, I don't think William Hurt's portrayal was as accurate as it could have been; he was missing something that was in the novel that just didn't get translated to the movie.

Scenery
The scenery is kind of dark most of the time. Or better yet, I should say that it's not as vibrant as other period dramas that I have seen. Lowood was very dark and dirty, which would be an accurate portrayal. Thornfield Hall itself is very dark, which would be fitting with the story. I didn't really care for the darker scenes, but it was fitting with the story.

Costumes

There isn't much to say about the costuming. On the richer characters, the costumes were nice and pretty, but they weren't there for too long. Jane had very few dresses since she is a plain and humble character. The only thing that bothered me was this: when Jane was an adult, the gowns looked like they were from the 1840's, but ten years ago in Jane's childhood, the costumes did not look like they were from the 1830's, but still the 1840's. That was probably the only thing that irked me about the costumes. Overall, they were good, I guess.

Helen Burns and Young Jane about to get their hair cut.

Music
Most of the music sounded very similar and didn't vary greatly. The music was very flowy and smooth. It had kind of a sad, beautiful tone to the music. It was nice music, but all the tracks seemed to be either the same song or very similar songs.

Overall: 2/5
This adaptation is not as accurate to the story as others, but it gets the overall point across. There were quite a few things changed from the novel, especially at the end. Jane Eyre isn't much of a favorite story with me, but this version is tolerable. I probably wouldn't rewatch it, but it wasn't as bad as some period dramas that I have seen.

Jane Eyre is available on DVD. It runs for 112 minutes.