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Nikki and I have to read one book a week in Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses trilogy STARTING TODAY in order to finish them all in time for Virtual Book Club on Friday 12 February 2021 at 7:30pm Central Time. [Nikki here: I’ve started reading ACOTAR.  Who else has?  Let us know!] Sign up here for an evening of conversation and spoilers about our most re-read series in the past 3 years. We highly suggest adult beverages and snacks. But, here’s how we’re really feeling: ::as this song plays in our heads::

Reader, I watched it. Reader, I prefer it on film. You can come at me all you want in the comments or on social media, but I will stand by my opinion. Reasons why I love it on film: it’s immediate and moody, and (potentially) much more gothic feeling. I feel considerably more pathos towards Mr. Rochester as I watch his emotions on his face and relational machinations towards everyone else from the fourth wall rather than experiencing it from Jane’s point of view. It takes much less time to watch it than re-read, and I’m not opposed to being entertained for less time when I’m already familiar with a story. I am not going to re-create a list of Jane Eyre in Film, because IMDB already has us covered in that respect. What I am going to do is give a few short critiques on my three favorite versions and some honorable mentions that I didn’t have time to finish (or have available to me) watching. Here they are in reverse chronological order:

2011’s Jane Eyre is quite possibly the version that most millennial women, like ourselves, think of when we consider Jane Eyre in film. Starring Michael Fassbender of X-MEN: First Class fame as Edward Rochester and Mia Wasikowska who played Alice in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass as Jane. Oh, and let’s not forget Dame Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax! The movie opens with Jane at a crossroads and the majority of the movie takes place as a flashback from when she’s alone on the moors after leaving Rochester and denying him herself as his mistress. The cinematography is lovely, but very brooding and overly, dramatically foggy to my taste. It feels like it’s trying too hard to be gothic and frightening for the viewer. It’s 2 hours with Jane currently found for free on HBO Max, or you can rent it at the Amazon link above.

And when the BBC does a novel adaptation in a miniseries format (and subsequently releases it in the United States by PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre), I am rarely disappointed. And 2006’s Jane Eyre is unequivocally my favorite and it’s mostly because Thornfield Hall is bright with natural light and lush gardens yet masculine in style and interior décor. The second reason is that Toby Stephen’s Mr. Rochester acts like a human being with normal human emotions and reactions. He’s a little moody, sometimes reacting out of hand as in the novel, but we get a few flashbacks to his life in Jamaica which precede these outbursts. And, he’s way more romantic and sensual than those other, coldhearted, more manipulative Rochesters. Thirdly, the soundtrack reminds me greatly of 1994’s Little Women. Penultimately, the plot is the closest to the novel, hello we actually get informed about Rochester’s life before Jane in flashbacks and also how the Rivers are related to Jane – other movies skip over the cousin aspect. And, finally, dang this cast! Holy whoa. Besides Toby Stephens, who is the son of Dame Maggie Smith, so we know his acting ability must come from both nature and nurture, we have Ruth Wilson, whose Jane is paradoxically both stone faced and emotive at the same time. I’ve been loving her as Mrs. Coulter in HBO’s His Dark Materials, which is based off of Philip Pullman’s trilogy of novels by the same name. Bonus actor alert, Andrew Buchan who plays St. John Rivers has most recently been seen on Netflix’s The Crown playing Andrew Parker Bowles and Starz’s The Spanish Princess playing Thomas More. Worth binging all four hour-long episodes of this version, as it’s currently free on Amazon Prime.

My Two Honorable Mentions:

I watched 1997’s 2 hour movie because it’s free on Prime and I love the actors from other movies and TV shows. Could you imagine Pabbie from Frozen and Frozen 2 as the leading man type? Well, when Ciaran Hinds plays Mr. Rochester, that’s what you get! He’s also well loved from HBO’s Rome where he played Julius Caesar. I made note to mention there’s a drawing room scene where a bust of Julius Caesar is shown next to Mr. Rochester. I giggled at the foreshadowing of Ciaran Hinds’ future role. Samantha Morton filmed Jane Eyre around the same time as she filmed Tom Jones, but you may recognize her from Minority Report with Tom Cruise, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them where she played the New Salem organizer Mary Lou, and more recently from The Walking Dead seasons 9 and 10 where she plays Alpha.

But, maybe what you really want is 11 half hour episodes of BBC created drama starring Timothy Dalton as Mr. Rochester. 1983’s Jane Eyre is definitely going to fit that description, even though it’s older than I am, and no I’m not planning on watching it anytime soon.

Readers, this is my short list of favorites, but if you’re interested in reading or watching more versions of this month’s Jane in January, wikipedia has an excellent list of Jane Eyre Adaptations, on screen, in books, on the radio, or on the stage. Including, but NOT remotely limited to the next two titles we’re bringing you this month.

What medium do you go to first when you just can’t get enough of a story or character? Obviously, I go to the screen!

~Ashley

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