If the opening credits hadn't rolled for Cary Fukunaga's new adaptation of Jane Eyre, I might have guessed I was watching Wuthering Heights. Mia Wasikowska as Jane rushes through rain-soaked moors, overtaken by despair and the unceasing storm. She reaches for the house just up the hill, but collapses in the thick heather. Only later, in flashback, do we learn how this quiet, anguished girl came within the grasp of happiness. Or did she? Fukunaga brings out all the Gothic elements of Charlotte Bronte's often filmed novel, and undercuts the hope that romance will conquer.
His film magnifies the tempestuous environment of the Brontes' works. Jane Eyre comes to Thornfield House as a governess under Edward Rochester, and must stand up to his temper and disdain. As Victorian convention dictates, he comes to express his feelings for her, despite her plain, unworldly appearance. But even their first kiss turns from tender to foreboding in Fukunaga's hands. The trees shiver about the lovers, accompanied by a melancholy violin. The natural world is cold to the humans who inhabit it.
I'm not sure if Michael Fassbender is an ideal Rochester. He portrays his conflicted feelings toward Jane well, and plays their intimacy well. But he's more dry than arrogant in his first scenes, and too tamped down (I would say) to seem like a man capable of great passions. Perhaps, though, as Fukunaga's otherwise excellent film seems to impart, the passions are not man's but God's. The true desire of this lot is to survive.