Playing opposite her as Rochester is German-Irish actor Michael Fassbender, who is well suited for this brooding role with his strong, craggy features. Leading the excellent cast of costars are Jamie Bell as St. John Rivers and Oscar-winning actress Judi Dench in the role as the castle housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax. 

I was greatly impressed by the fact that the interior scenes of this movie were filmed using natural or candle light, which adds an extraordinary amount of verisimilitude, especially to the nighttime scenes. While this makes for at times a very dark picture, it adds immensely to the atmosphere of the movie enhanced even more by the fact that the fireplaces heating each room add their own soft colors. Even the outdoor landscapes are irretrievably bleak and desolate matching the mood of the story.

I greatly appreciated the fact that this movie starts out in the middle of the novel with the young and naive governess Jane Eyre fleeing the estate of her employer and erstwhile suitor after the truth comes out as to the great lie which Rochester had hidden from her deep within the walls of his castle. Thereafter the heart-rending scenes of her youth with her cruel aunt and later as a student at the abominable Lowood School are presented in flashback. This was a novel way to do this, as it interrupted the natural chronological order of the occasionally pedantic story.

While the casting was flawless, the direction by Fukunaga evidences his youth and lack of experience resulting in very slow pacing which made for needlessly long scenes spent emphasizing the bleak atmosphere but adding little to the progress of the plot. The result is that many important scenes were either shredded or deleted in a film that stretches for exactly two hours, but should have been longer to cover all of the important points. After all, practically every movie which I have seen recently has clocked in at well over two hours, so I was well prepared for the same time frame for this beloved story.  

I assess most of the blame for this to script writer Moira Buffini, who for some inexplicable reason deleted many critical scenes while racing through others which are incredibly important to the story and needed definition. Even though Ms. Buffini is English and should know this novel by heart, she is perhaps even more inexperienced than Fukunaga, and this shows in her lack of appreciation for the finer plot points of this tale.

Jane Eyre's youth (portrayed by Amelia Clarkson) at the home of her aunt, Mrs. Reed (Sally Hawkins), where she suffers horrible mistreatment in spite of the dying request of her father, is quickly covered in a few minutes, leaving little but crumbs left for the imagination. Also deleted from this part of the story is Jane's relationship with Sally, the sympathetic housemaid and her only true friend. While the deprivations at Lowood School are also covered in a few powerful scenes, Jane's later, happier years as a teacher there are glossed over. 

Rochester's dog, Pilot, is not initially seen when Jane meets Rochester for the first time in a scene where she should have seen the dog first. Later the Ingram party is compressed into a few scenes with little of the societal gossip showing what a vain and silly group this was. Worse still, the critical scene with Rochester masquerading as a fortunetelling magician was inexplicably deleted from this movie. Grace Pool is never referred to as the subterfuge for all of the strange noises in the house, and she is only once mentioned by name later in the movie.   

Buffini later passes over a critical plot point in the story when she fails to mention the great (and highly improbable) coincidence that the three members of the Rivers family turn out to be cousins of Jane Eyre. Knowing this shows her devotion to the surviving members of her family and puts the distribution of her windfall inheritance into a more interesting light, given how she had earlier been mistreated by the Reed family.  

All of the foregoing, especially the inheritance, adds to the inadequacy of the final scene which I found to be highly unsatisfactory. If you don't at least make this psychological point, and Buffini certainly didn't, then the entire dramatic thread of the end of the story is greatly weakened. 

One of the great psychological observations and one of the most satisfying aspects of this novel is in its progression and change in station between the two protagonists during the course of their deepening relationship. 

Jane Eyre first comes to Rochester as a humble governess with nothing. He has everything: money, station, power, family, lineage, and a grand estate, so they are clearly very unequal to each other in worldly status. Though spirited, Jane in a way is the supplicant to him since he is so much above her in the eyes of the world. She can't believe that he loves her and wants to marry her.

However, by the end of the novel, Jane Eyre returns to Rochester as an independent woman with an inheritance. She can now pick and choose her mate, and yet she still chooses Rochester, the grand love of her life, who by then has lost his grand estate, much of his good looks, and most of his eyesight. Rochester now feels like he is damaged goods unworthy of the love of any woman. Jane Eyre has been elevated to something far above her earlier status as a lowly, penniless governess, while Rochester has been reduced to the role of a supplicant, especially in his own eyes, since he feels that he has little to offer her. In fact, he can't even believe that she has returned to him.

If their roles haven't been completely reversed, then the very least that can be said is that they are now on equal footing, one to the other, which makes this final moment in the "Jane Eyre" story all the more poignant. This scene was beautifully displayed in the 1983 version of this story starring Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke, but entirely missing from this version. 

I have read that this novel has been made into a movie far more often than the classic "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, an earlier compatriot of the Brontë sisters, for the simple reason that the characters are few and the locales so limited as to make it very inexpensive to recreate the fashions and the lifestyle of the period. So be it, even though my preference would be for the superior Austen novels with their keen wit and brilliantly observed social satire. 

By and large the movies made from "Jane Eyre" make for more enjoyable entertainment than reading the long, overwrought gothic novel filled with so many improbable coincidences as to defy belief. This is one of those examples where the movies are usually better than the novel, so this is why I am always up for seeing a new or even an old version of "Jane Eyre." 

Fortunately for me and those like me, a new version seems to come along every few years like cinematic comfort food. Who can resist the allure of a dark and forbidding castle, a master tormented by the sins of his past, and the chaste innocent who comes to live there and love him for the goodness that she sees hidden in him? Yes, the story is a perfect example of the overwrought English gothic novel, but it has lasted for more than 150 years because of its dramatic appeal as a classic tale of the Beauty and the Beast. 

For practically everyone the iconic version of "Jane Eyre" will always be the 1943 version starring Orson Wells and Joan Fontaine. This movie is a powerful rendition enhanced by the overwhelming presence of Wells, who dominates the screen in his every movie. The filming in stark black and white and the sophisticated camera angles common to all of his films only add to the majesty of this movie. The minor quibble of many is that Joan Fontaine was too beautiful for the role, but this is of small matter to me and to the effect of the story.

Note that I wrote that the 1943 version is the iconic version, but not my favorite version. I would rank it as second behind the outstanding 1983 eleven episode television mini series starring Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke. There enough time was spent to explore every nook and cranny of the novel. Conversely, some have complained that Timothy Dalton, who later went on to portray James Bond, was too handsome for the role of Rochester, but, as with Joan Fontaine, this is of no matter to me. Like the outstanding 1995 BBC version of "Pride and Prejudice" starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, this production will remain the hallmark of a Jane Eyre film for a long time to come. 

Another version of this novel worthy of mention is the 1996 version lushly filmed by director Franco Zeffirelli starring American actor William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Adding further cinematic heft to this version is the incredibly strong cast of costars which include Oscar-winning actress Joan Plowright as Mrs. Fairfax and Anna Paquin ("True Blood") as the young Jane Eyre. Actresses Geraldine Chaplin and Amanda Root round out the supporting roles. 

Surprisingly enough, another version of "Jane Eyre" followed a year later starring Ciarán Hinds and Samantha Morton, both of whom have gone on to become well acquainted with American audiences in their later movies. 

Not having seen the movie in decades, I remember little of the 1970 television version of "Jane Eyre" starring George C. Scott and Susannah York, but I do remember complaints that she was, once again, too beautiful for the role of Jane Eyre while Scott may have been too old for the role of Rochester.

The takeaway point here is that the roles of Jane Eyre and Rochester are just too meaty not to capture the attention of any actor or actress worth their salt. These are plumb, career enhancing roles where stars of any degree of fame and experience can cut their chops bringing this story back to life, and I, no doubt, will be there to see them do it each and every time.

Charlotte Brontë wrote this novel in 1847 when she was but 31 years of age. Like all of her siblings, she would never live to see her 40th birthday, as she would die in 1855 shortly after her marriage. None of the Brontë sisters were strong of health, and the inference would be that their sad state of poor health was due to the years they spent at a boarding school similar to Lowood's which comes in for so much condemnation in this story. 120 minutes, and rated PG-13 for some thematic elements including a nude image and brief violent context.