3.5/4 Stars
Rated PG-13
Starring: Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts
The latest adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd captures the author’s fascination with class structure, social mores and the role of destiny in rural Victorian England. Hardy explored many of the same issues and displayed the same intricate plotting as Charles Dickens. However, Dickens was wont to place his works in the bustling metropolis of London. By contrast, Hardy preferred a countryside locale.
In the new film, the protagonist, Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan), is a headstrong, convention-defying woman. Bathsheba had been an orphan who grew up amidst genteel poverty. She is well educated, but lacking in material wealth. In an early scene, we see Bathsheba, engaged in the mundane task of picking potatoes on her aunt’s farm.
Bathsheba catches the eye of Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), a neighboring shepherd with a flock of considerable size. He is a fine figure of a man with a brawny physique and a laconic manner. Although Gabriel has exchanged only a few words with Bathsheba, this doesn’t deter him from abruptly proposing to her. Bathsheba spurns his overture, asserting that she needs a husband who could tame her. Bathsheba insists that Gabriel would never be able to do so. Gabriel reconciles himself to this rejection, but continues to long for Bathsheba.
Unexpectedly, Bathsheba inherits a sprawling estate from a relative. She must immediately depart to assume its management. Upon arrival, Bathsheba assembles her farm workers. She warns them, “Don’t anyone suppose that because I’m a woman, I don’t understand the difference between bad goings-on and good.” Bathsheba describes her intense work ethic, concluding, “I shall astonish you all.” Her rhetoric aside, running the estate will be a daunting challenge. Will Bathsheba be up to it?
Meanwhile, one night as Gabriel is sound asleep, his flock becomes agitated by a barking dog. They break down the corral that encloses them, run toward a cliff and go careening over its edge, lemming like, to their deaths. It is a stunning scene that captures the fickleness and unpredictability of fate. Just as Bathsheba has become a member of the landowning class, Gabriel loses his entire flock and with it his status.
Schoenaerts is the stand-out in this version of the story. The Belgian-born actor has already done impressive turns in Rust and Bone and The Drop. In a role with circumscribed dialogue, he smolders with unspoken emotional intensity.
Previously, screenwriter David Nicholls had adapted his own novel, Starter for Ten, Blake Morrison’s And When Did You Last See Your Father? and Hardy’s Tess of the D’Ubervilles into an eight-hour BBC mini-series. Here, he is constrained by the film’s truncated running time. Much of the narrative and character complexity of Hardy’s novel is lost. Perhaps the tome would have been better served by the more generous allocation of time afforded by the BBC to Tess of the D’Ubervilles. Nevertheless, Nicholls’ screenplay for Far From the Madding Crowd is well-polished and captures the essence, if not every nuance, of the source novel.
The film’s Danish director, Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration, The Hunt), had promised that his version would be “raw and revolutionary.” The film falls short of Vitterberg’s vaunted claims. Nevertheless, the latest adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd is a dramatically compelling and beautifully mounted film.
Opens Friday, May 15 at the Downer Theatre.
