Movie Review: 'Far From the Madding Crowd'

Thomas Hardy might flinch at this snappy adaptation of his epic novel, but it delivers romance without straining the modern attention span.

Adaptations of period romance novels are in season, and anyone who has seen Pride and Prejudice or Wuthering Heights knows that such a season is one set beneath a provincial English sky the colour of weathered tombstone, where eligible bachelors "in want of a wife" and dignified damsels with the beginnings of feminine rebellion in their veins play out the ritual games of Georgian, Romantic or Victorian "dating". Elaborate campaigns of hard-to-get are waged on those beloved farm lands, and lingering, soulful stares are the principal medium through which affection is transmitted.

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The heroine of Thomas Hardy's 1874 novel, Bathsheba Everdene, is played this time around, the fourth all told, by Carey Mulligan who, often slipping into her well-rehearsed and mischievous Mulligan smile, brings a strange playfulness to the proceedings. As Ms Everdene, she is a country girl who comes into a fortune and takes on the job of farm-owner with capable hands. The emotional trials are to be found not in her labours, however, but rather in the three suitors who all fall beneath the fey seductions of her aloofness and self-possession, and propose marriage.

There's Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), a man fallen on tough times but who remains loyal and faithful, William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), her rich and introverted neighbour, and Sergeant Troy (Tom Sturridge), the dashing third contender.

Far From the Madding Crowd is ravenous in its desire to show those classic images of the countryside, where porcelain women stand in the half-light of winter morning, with trembling, frost-bitten lips, and swathes of ploughed and planted earth provide the emerald backdrop. Director Thomas Vinterberg offers some great shots of landscape, but is also interested in stylised images of romance. When Bathsheba shares her first kiss with the sergeant, he is standing in blood-red uniform with black epaulets in the dappled sunlight of a grove. The camera stills, and it's that electric moment again, where the strong-hearted female lead with all her fought-for principles melts into waxy surrender in the arms of her chosen one.

But she remains an interesting character, especially for her times, for example when she says that "it is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language designed by men to express theirs", or when turning away one of her trio of admirers, tells him "Mr Oak, I don't want a husband. If I ever were to marry, I'd want someone to tame me and you'd never be able to do it." This line could have suggested many shades of the character, but Mulligan's lips already burst into the charming, taunting outline of one of her long Mulligan smiles even as she's delivering the final sting of the sentiment, and a certain feistiness is the inevitable outcome.

Much has to be trimmed and clipped to package the story into a neat two hours. Nevertheless, the rising and falling fates of its wedge of society, both romantic and financial, make for a gripping series of entanglements.

Rating: 3/5 stars