Jane Eyre (1997)

Jane Eyre (1997)
ITV
19 October 1997
Historical Drama, Romance
DVD
D+

At the time I reviewed the 1983 adaptation, I either didn't own this version, or I was unaware that it was packaged with my DVD of Emma.  This version makes that look all the better, because this one is a mess, and not just as an adaptation:

1. Horribly miscast in every role, particularly that of St. John, who (in his less than ten minutes of screen time) comes across as warm and accepting, rather than stiff and distant;
2. Horribly directed by Robert Young (not that Robert Young), who did the 1990 series of Jeeves and Wooster and seemed to then have some sense of period acting, albeit twentieth-century rather than nineteenth;
3. Horribly acted by in particular Ciaran Hinds (who was fine in Jane Austen's Persuasion around then, if not who I picture when reading that book); Hinds spends much of his time ranting and shouting, so that Bertha looks saner than her hubby, and we get none of the other sides of Rochester's personality, making Jane's love look far more masochistic than in the novel;
4. Horribly edited, unlike '97's Emma, which knew where to cut and still keep continuity; to take just one example, we get only a glimpse of the Reed family and servants, so when Bessie shows up and Jane recognizes her, we don't, and then Jane's visit to her Aunt Reed as an adult happens completely offscreen, which has an effect on the St. John plot, as well as Jane being an heiress when she returns to Rochester;
5. Horribly written, not just with Brontë's words being tossed out but with what replaces them, especially Rochester's lines, like "This may sound silly but..." and "You'll never know a love as pure and fine as this," which made me roll with laughter;
6. Samantha Morton isn't bad as Jane but, although her screen persona (seen also as Harriet Smith in Emma and soon to be seen in Tom Jones as Sophia Western) isn't exactly Xena, she can't do self-effacing and this, with Hinds's unhinged performance, throws the "romance" further off balance;
7. The worst onscreen kissing I've ever seen (not counting kisses that are meant to be bad), with sometimes only one or two lips involved rather than four;
8. The scenery and sets and Gemma Jones's performance as a more-in-the-know than in the novel Mrs. Fairfax are fine, if less Gothic than the novel.  (The tree of the proposal scene, pictured above, never gets blasted by symbolic lightning.)

Of the three screenwriters Kay Mellor plays Mrs. Cooper, while Peter Wright gets the larger role of the nameless Clergyman, and Richard Hawley resisted appearing onscreen.  Richenda Carey, who was Lady Wickhammersley in Jeeves and Wooster, here is Lady Ingram.  Amusingly, Laura Harling, who's Young Jane, would be Young Sophia in Tom Jones, so I guess they thought she looked like Samantha Morton.