In Far From the Madding Crowd, a new film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel, every eligible man wants Carey Mulligan’s winsome Bathsheba. But she cannot be tamed! (Funny how commitment phobia reads as strength in a female protagonist and weakness in a male protagonist). Or at least she won’t “settle” for less than what she’s already planned for herself. Nevertheless the wanting continues and the camera, observes her, often at a distance as with a memorable shot of Bathsheba laying back from her saddle, as if enjoying the tactile and visual sensations of the powerful creature beneath her and the vibrant foliage and sky above her.
(This review contains a general trajectory ending spoiler but it is based on a 151 year-old classic novel.)
Three bachelors and Bathsheba's issues after the jump...
Bachelor #1 Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a manly sensitive ridiculously great looking shepherd who treats her with respect and offers her a sweet country life as essentially equal partners. Though she likes him a lot and her curiousity is piqued, she isn't ready to settle down.
Bachelor #2 William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) is a very wealthy but lonely man (Michael Sheen) whose name is an unfortunate mismatch with his timid softness. He offers her a leisurely version of her current life; he's smart enough to know that she'll still want her independence but dim enough to miss why.
Bachelor #3 Sergeant Troy (Tom Sturridge) is a young military man who offers Bathsheba nothing but is eager to take. He doesn’t court so much as pounce, to borrow from Cabaret's sexual lessons. Bathsheba, guarded in all ways but the sexual of which she has zero experience, succumbs. More than succumbs, really, she runs straight into his fire despite all the smoky warnings.
One of the film's many strong visual decisions is Troy's initial pass at our heroine which occurs in a forest that's shot more like something from a fertile dreamscape. There's something not quite real about it, too perfect really, as if the dream could slide at any moment into nightmare.
I confess to not having read the novel OR seen the Julie Christie film which first transferred the classic to celluloid (I know. I know. Bad fan!) so I'm at a loss to say how well either film understands the text or characters or to compare the two films. So pardon my ignorance but are we meant to think Bathsheba an arrogant and blind fool throughout? Maybe it's just that the deck is so thoroughly stacked by director Thomas Vinterberg and Screenwriter David Nicholls that her romantic confusion is inexcusable rather than sympathetic and fascinating.
What Bathsheba wants is, in the end, a moot point. The camera knows what it wants and what it wants is the good shepherd played by the greatest movie star Belgium has ever offered us. Schoenearts is irresistible to look at and the camera agrees, continually flattering him with intense closeups as he observes Bathsheba. We have no choice but to thank the filmmakers for so much of him but maybe the camera ought to give him a little space if this is meant to be Bathsheba's story and not his?
Julie Christie and Terence Stamp in the 1967 versionIt's tough to imagine that the original film isn't more arousing or at least more empathetic to Bathsheba's wrongheaded sexual impulses. Sturridge does fine work as the despicable soldier but there have been few actors in history as combustible with their hard gaze as Terence Stamp in his prime. I mean he brought a whole family to their knees to carnally worship him in Teorema, did he not? The other problem could well be Mulligan's screen persona, which has never really hinted at true sexual wildness (the closest she's come is the mascara-streaked messed in Shame), but has always projected instead, something like sexual innocence and engaging intellect. Someone more carnally mysterious, like a -- well, like a Julie Christie -- might have been a better fit for the role.
Such as it is then, Far From the Madding Crowd, is a mixed bag, but one that's easy to recommend. Even if Mulligan is wrong for the role, she's a wonderful actress. And, more generally speaking, it's a thoroughly enjoyable movie to sit through with fine acting, a lushly imagined farm estate, and beautiful costumes courtesy of the great Janet Patterson (The Piano, Peter Pan). Her work somehow grants the film a contemporary immediacy (love that maroon leather jacket on Bathsheba) without pulling us too anachronistically far from the period.
But the Madding Crowd story is more or less a waiting game. If it's meant to be a romantic tragedy, it doesn't work. It's more like romantic comedy in its absolute inevitability. Mr Oak is the only man for Bathsheba. He knows it. We know it. And the camera is drawing up wedding plans from the moment it first spots the dreamboat, tending to his sheep. When will smart but dim Bathsheba know it?
Grade: B
Oscar Chances: Fox Searchlight has carefully turned this one into a minor hit so perhaps it'll get an Oscar campaign at year's end?