‘Far From the Madding Crowd,’ Close to Perfect
Given the number of period dramas churned out every year, it’s surprising how few are any good. Many are dull as dirt; many are bodice rippers with delusions of grandeur; and many take so many anachronistic liberties that you wonder why the filmmakers bothered at all. A new adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Victorian novel Far From the Madding Crowd seems a dismal prospect, then. Why try to top the deliciously hamstrung magic of the 1967 Julie Christie version? And how can modern Hollywood capture the glorious complexity of Bathsheba Everdeen, a 19th century literary heroine so legendarily independent that Suzanne Collins named the protagonist of The Hunger Games after her? (Granted, that’s not a selling point for everyone.)
I should have known director Thomas Vinterberg wouldn’t attach himself to anything trite. Originally known as one of the founders of Dogme 95, the avant-garde Danish film movement launched to eradicate big-studio pretensions, the director’s most acclaimed work from that era is “The Celebration”–a harrowing, deeply affecting portrait of a dysfunctional, well-to-do family. More recently he directed “The Hunt,” which boasts unusually rich visual and narrative detail as well as a preoccupation with the same themes that consume Hardy’s work: class politics, insular communities, and the grim unavoidability of fate. For a classic love story, “Far From the Madding Crowd” is awash in harsh realities only partly offset by the natural buoyancy of its protagonist. Continue Reading →