Jane Eyre 2011

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: Fukunaga's superbly executed direction and careful staging speak very rarely, and yet say so much. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: A splendid example of how to tackle the daunting duty of turning a beloved work of classic literature into a movie. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: The film builds to a shattering climax that works precisely because all involved fully embrace the melodrama. Be sure to bring Kleenex. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Wasikowska's Jane is as watchful as only a damaged soul can be, and, when challenged, frighteningly fast. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Ms. Wasikowska works with economical purity within the novel's 19th-century English setting. Jane's personal power seems entirely her own, rather than some anachronistic notion of self-empowerment. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Some of us are "Jane Eyre" addicts, and the new movie version directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga gives us just the right fix. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Bring tissues. You've been warned. Read more

Tasha Robinson, AV Club: The sad fact is, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre just doesn't make for appealing cinema. Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: Beauty, along with a sense of mystery, is what audiences expect in a Gothic romance, and Fukunaga delivers with carefully composed shots of austere landscapes and shadowy Victorian opulence. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: This is one of the better Jane Eyres I've seen onscreen, a conception that forsakes movie-groomed glamour for a plainer, less compromised beauty. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Screenwriter Moira Buffini sticks pretty closely to the novel, and director Cary Fukunaga conjures a drab tone that nicely sets off the characters' violent but rigidly controlled passions. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: To no one's surprise, the story still works like Gothic gangbusters, thanks in part to reliable back-court support from Judi Dench (as Mrs. Fairfax) and Sally Hawkins (as Jane's venal guardian). Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: It has passion all right -- in the stylistics. Those star-crossed love birds Jane and Rochester are no match for the tracking shots and throbbing violins. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Somehow Wasikowska makes it all seem much more personal, more real. With her stark, starched dresses and blunt, elastic face, she draws you in, making both Jane's pain and incredible resolve tangible. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Has a few token thunderstorm-on-the-moors scenes but lacks a grand, mythological design. The movie is choppy and prosaic. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Young stars shine in gritty, low-key version of the Bronte perennial. Read more

Karen D'Souza, San Jose Mercury News: True aficionados will doubtless wish the film etched every aspect of the Bronte experience but that's a quibble in light of the movie's intoxicating charms. It's impossible not to fall in love with this Jane. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: An atmospheric, absorbing version of the classic romance between an abandoned, plucky orphan and a wealthy, mysterious older man with a seriously Gothic secret. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: If the motion-picture industry had existed in 1847, the year Charlotte Bronte's novel appeared, it might have produced an adaptation much like this one. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: It captures the elemental Bronte passions yet again. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Some wonderful parts in the novel are crudely truncated; other, oft-omitted material is added without adding very much. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: Cary Fukunaga's feverishly soulful remake of the multiply remade Jane Eyre rises to most challenges -- not the least of which is making Mia Wasikowska, a golden child of current cinema, look homely. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Though there's enough to admire intellectually here, every "Jane Eyre" should also deliver some emotional swoons. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: After 160 years, this is a story that still grips the heart and the mind. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: You gotta hand it to Charlotte Bronte. One hundred and sixty-four years since she gave hyperkinetic Victorian schoolgirls their first sleepless nights, she's pulling them in all over again. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: By opening their movie with the mature Jane, the filmmakers forge an emotional bond between her and the audience. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: A better barometer for the necessity of Cary Fukunaga's film, however, might be its less-than-literate box office competition. Applying that consideration, maybe we do need this Jane Eyre after all. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Mia Wasikowska, from Australia, is a relative newcomer who must essentially carry "Jane Eyre," and succeeds with restraint, expressing a strong moral compass. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Cary Joji Fukunaga has reanimated a classic for a new generation, letting 'Jane Eyre' resonate with terror and tenderness. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Cary Joji Fukunaga has very likely surpassed all previous cinematic versions of "Jane Eyre." Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Careful, respectful and even enjoyable, and yet dry, singularly humorless and played without the lavishness of spirit that makes sense of Gothic melodrama. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Wasikowska is the revelation here -- her wary, intelligent face tells us volumes about this abused but unbowed young woman. But the small roles are also beautifully cast. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: There is not a drab image or a middling performance in the piece. The freewheeling adaptation drops needless scenes and spurs the story ahead with galloping momentum. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Anyone who savours shades of grey will have a feast. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Luminous in The Kids are All Right and Alice in Wonderland, Wasikowska makes drab seem rad in director Cary Fukunaga's insightful rendering of Bronte's gothic love story, a new classic version of this oft-told tale. Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: This is no plain Jane. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: In its superbly spare execution, the newest adaptation of Jane Eyre is both faithful to Charlotte Bronte's classic and distinctively original. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: The candlelight flickers exquisitely even as the passions are slow to ignite in this spare, shrewdly acted but not especially vital retelling of Jane Eyre. Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: Using Bronte's text as the basis for an inquiry into free will versus servitude, Fukunaga mounts a subtly shaded, yet emotionally devastating, examination of what it really means to choose one's own way. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: While qualifying as the most gorgeously appointed and finely detailed version of the novel so far, still lacks the element of essential fire to make it come fully, even subversively, to life. Read more