Any female who ever went to grade nine English class would be well familiar with Charlotte Brontë’s influential gender-relations canon Jane Eyre – if not the 1847 text itself then certainly one of the numerous adaptations for film or screen (or CliffsNotes depending on how rock bottom your effort levels were).
The latest big screen remake has young director Cary Fukunaga at the helm (filmmaker behind the wonderful Sin Nobre, 2009) and has elfin Australian actress Mia Wasikowska in the titular role, which will have her join the likes of Joan Fontaine, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Samantha Morton who’ve played Jane in past adaptations.
Here’s the first look at the film poster with Mia looking very ‘Jane Eyre’:
As any literary geek will attest the central man character, Mr Rochester, is pretty much the ultimate bad boy sex symbol: a brooding, mysterious Byronic oaf with poor communication skills. Swoon. Nailing the sexual tension between Jane and Rochester is essential to the film’s success, and I can’t wait to see the chemistry between Wasikowska and the latest incarnation of Rochester to be played by Michael Fassbender (Hunger, Inglourious Basterds).
The cast is rounded out by Jamie Bell, Judi Dench, Holliday Grainger, Sally Hawkins, Tamzin Merchant, and Imogen Poots.
Michael Fassbender has been phenomenal in everything he’s done of late, but will he match up to Toby Stephens from the 2006 BBC television adaptation? Period fiction is hot.
