Movie review by Greg Carlson

Spanish director Jose Luis Guerin’s “In the City of Sylvia” encourages, even demands, the close attention of its viewers. With its meticulous framing, unhurried long takes, patient rhythm, and absence of dialogue, the movie rewards only those who concentrate on the talented filmmaker’s painstaking attention to detail. Photographed from the point of view of a young, unnamed man (Xavier Lafitte) visiting Strasbourg, France – presumably hoping to find the Sylvia of the title – Guerin’s poetic daydream can shimmer like a mirage one moment and startle with recognizable human experience the next. Undiluted, crystalline, visual storytelling, “In the City of Sylvia” applies real time chronology in most of its acutely realized sequences, and the result is a romantic meditation pregnant with Bressonian contemplativeness.

Built around a three-night structure, even though nearly all the action occurs outdoors in bright daylight, “In the City of Sylvia” stages several forceful scenes, including a voyeur’s banquet of people-watching at a café, a dizzying low speed pursuit, an enigmatic conversation containing the film’s only sustained spoken dialogue, and an Orphic descent into the erotically charged Les Aviateurs nightclub where the story began six years before the events of the film. Each of Guerin’s set pieces unveils another facet of the director’s dazzling technical virtuosity. Cinematographer Natasha Braier’s command of light layers the space in front of and behind windows and reflective surfaces with almost unbelievable expertise and the film’s team of production managers and assistants orchestrates a small army of extras indispensable to the movie’s success.

The café scene takes up roughly one quarter of the total running time and is in many ways the film’s tour de force. As Lafitte’s artist sips his drink and pencils (mostly faceless) miniature portraits of the customers seated around him, Guerin and Braier work wonders with composition, shifting focus through planes of tables while a babbling brook of overlapping conversations blends and buzzes together. One immediately senses the intensity of the main character’s highly individualized perceptions of space and sound, and we shift our eyes along with his, wondering who – if any – of these people will emerge from anonymity. Finally, a woman (Pilar Lopez de Ayala) gets up to leave and our previously passive watcher follows her.

Guerin’s knowledge of movies haunts “In the City of Sylvia” like the ghost of Carlotta Valdes, and the movie’s central, wordless cat-and-mouse through winding streets pays spiritual homage to Scottie Ferguson’s discreet surveillance of Madeleine Elster in “Vertigo.” When the protagonist finally confronts the young woman in the car of a public tram, the movie’s only significant spoken exchange ruptures the hypnotic interiority carefully constructed during the first half of the film. Guerin’s decision to allow his characters speech initially contradicts the discipline of silence, but the filmmaker’s dialogue does not disappoint, alluding to another cinema classic, Alain Resnais’s “Last Year at Marienbad.”

The number of virtual goddesses inhabiting Strasbourg is as unlikely as the ratio of sylphs shopping in Sean Ellis’s otherwise quotidian “Cashback” supermarket. Guerin’s employ of the male gaze directed toward an endless parade of almost impossibly beautiful women and the story’s stalking/hunting motif invite the scrutiny of those wishing to parse and interpret sexual politics, but the movie’s subjectively filtered view of the feminine becomes deliberately metonymic by film’s end. The title suggests that Strasbourg’s female inhabitants are each and every one a potential “Sylvia” as far as the protagonist is concerned, a suggestion that for any of us, infinite outcomes exist.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In one of the best jokes in “Midnight in Paris,” time-traveling romantic Gil (Owen Wilson) suggests a future plot to budding filmmaker Luis Bunuel decades before “The Exterminating Angel.” Confused by the premise, Bunuel repeatedly claims he does not understand why the dinner guests can’t just leave. Speaking slyly to one of the central thematic concerns of “Midnight in Paris,” the exchange is a moment for movie lovers by a movie lover, beautifully gift-wrapped by writer-director Woody Allen. The septuagenarian auteur, whose famous list of things that make life worth living in “Manhattan” name-checks musical, artistic, and cinematic heroes with heartfelt sincerity, conjures another set of cultural heavyweights this time, and the result is a sweet, wistful valentine to the City of Light.

A successful Hollywood screenwriter who dreams of deeper artistic fulfillment, Gil has come to France with fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her parents Helen (Mimi Kennedy) and John (Kurt Fuller), hopelessly uncultured xenophobes whose intolerance of their hosts reeks of superiority and entitlement. The ugly Americans browbeat affable Gil with mockery and disdain, affording Allen the opportunity to ridicule their materialism and regressive politics. A chance encounter with charismatic academic Paul (Michael Sheen, buttery and smug) sets up a series of social interactions for which Gil has no stomach. Taking leave of the group, Gil wanders the streets, and at the stroke of twelve, accepts a ride in a ghostly, vintage Peugeot that whisks him back in time.

Answering the old parlor game requiring participants to share their dream dinner companions, “Midnight in Paris” sets loose a nostalgist in the eye of the Jazz Age hurricane. Interacting with the likes of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Salvador Dali, Gil wanders through his mind-bending evenings in a slack-jawed state of wonderment. Falling hard for Pablo Picasso’s current muse Adriana (Marion Cotillard), Gil begins to question whether or not he belongs in the 21st century, and Allen uses the complication to consider the flaws and fallacies of longing for a “better” past. The filmmaker has regularly applied a scalpel to the foolishness that results from “grass is greener” temptation, and few directors are as consistently proficient when blending misery and fortuity.

The visual contrast between the blindingly illuminated modern day scenes and the lush, golden-hued past highlights Gil’s increasing vexation with Inez, and if “Midnight in Paris” has a flaw, it is the way that McAdams is confined to a supercilious, easily dismissed character. Focusing instead on Gil’s great fortune, Allen smartly avoids any explanation of the “magic” that allows his protagonist to stroll between the years, a strategy that diverts viewer attention from any genuine issues that are bound to arise from canceling a marital engagement.

While Gil idolizes the Lost Generation, Adriana cites the Belle Epoque as her ideal, and when she and Gil find themselves in the 1890s hobnobbing with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Gauguin, Adriana confesses her own desire to remain in the vibrant fin de siècle time frame. Gil’s disappointment as he tries to convince Adriana that the Roaring Twenties can’t be topped initiates a realization – at least for the audience – that no matter the era in which we live, we pine for a past we cannot have.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A calculated effort to rejuvenate and rethink a once hot franchise for Marvel, 20th Century Fox, and their partners, “X-Men: First Class” embraces the Silver Age origins of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s misunderstood mutants via its smoothly designed period setting. Rewinding the clock to JFK’s 1962 Camelot nightmare, a revisionist Cuban Missile Crisis places the emergent superheroes at the heart of historical destiny. In addition to the throwback threads and cheeky slang, director Matthew Vaughn efficiently communicates a number of origin yarns with a verve that puts Kenneth Branagh’s leaden, wooden, barren “Thor” to shame.

In a tableau that has gained the status of a collective memory among comic readers, the 1944 concentration camp odyssey of Erik Lehnsherr is shared again, this time embellished with the welcome appearance of perfectly sinister Nazi doctor Kevin Bacon, whose very namesake – along with a resume of wonderfully over the top performances – suggests a level of ham that helps constitute an equilibrium with some of the movie’s straighter, more humorless character renderings. Despite drooling web chatter to the contrary, it is Bacon who makes January Jones look good and not the other way around. Pureeing all kinds of X-Men history, Bacon is a dandy Sebastian Shaw, even if he doesn’t have a ponytail or, as Bacon himself describes it, dress like Benjamin Franklin.

While Lehnsherr suffers unspeakable horrors in Europe, young Charles Xavier is raised in wealth and privilege in the Westchester County, New York mansion that will later house his school for “gifted youngsters.” Like Bryan Singer, who returns to the series with co-story and producing credits, Vaughn grasps the inherently dynamic contrasts between the future Magneto and Professor X and sets to work mortaring the foundation of Xavier’s MLK-like advocacy for non-violence and Magneto’s Malcolm X-esque embrace of mutant self-empowerment and resistance “by any means necessary.” James McAvoy’s pre-paralysis telepath gets stuck with the usual pedantic speeches urging tolerance and responsibility, while Michael Fassbender lights up Magneto’s more fiery and charismatic calls for insurrection.

Caught between the two men is the young Raven/Mystique, the blue-skinned shape-shifter played by Rebecca Romijn in the first set of “X” movies. Embodied here by an appealing Jennifer Lawrence, Mystique dials up another of the comic’s central themes: the pain of the outsider accompanied by an almost desperate desire to fit in and be “normal,” no matter the cost. On the page, the teen angst of the X-Men has occasionally ventured into the psychologically complex territory of sexual desire. In this movie, Mystique’s unrequited feelings for Charles define one of the most striking of the film’s soap opera subplots. Later, a table-turning seduction allows Magneto to encourage Mystique to let her freak flag fly, and the scene features one of two cameo appearances (the other a seconds-long meeting in which a perfectly placed F-bomb detonates to much applause) engineered for fanboys and fangirls.

X-Geeks grumble about re-writes to comic canon, but the cinematic variation on the formation of the original team’s line-up strongly suggests that some of the other founding figures will join the Beast in the second and third installments of a planned trilogy. Movie continuity in the X-Men universe hews to its own logic, however, and given the out-of-chronology introductions of Angel and Iceman in the previous films, the constitution of the team in upcoming episodes is anyone’s guess. Several of the mutants inevitably fade into the background, turning up principally to do battle in action sequences. Old-schoolers might enjoy the realization of Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), an X-Man adversary who joined the team in the successful Giant-Size X-Men #1 in 1975. The rest can enjoy the finely tuned emotional melodrama that defines the fantastic world of genetically uncanny men and women.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The logical extension of fast food fable “Super Size Me,” Morgan Spurlock’s “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” – or more precisely, “POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” – affably, jokingly, and breezily follows the moviemaker/media personality on a manufactured meta-quest to create a “documentary” about product placement entirely and transparently sponsored and funded by corporate partners. The idea is almost fiendishly attractive but the execution is vanilla; Spurlock goes out of his way to avoid, sidestep, and omit anything resembling argument, confrontation, or the impulse for critical thinking.

Instead, the moviemaker relies on his likable on-screen persona and a cascade of punch lines and gags to skim the surface of one of Hollywood’s worst kept secrets. Are we numb to the clutter generated by millions of “media impressions” or have the movie and culture industries become synonymous with the product-driven directive that suggests we can buy our way to happiness and fulfillment? Spurlock never grapples with these questions, opting instead to spend a significant amount of the movie’s running time chasing down meetings with the companies that don’t reject him immediately. Volkswagen, for example, says no way, and Spurlock scores one of the film’s biggest laughs at the expense of the German automaker.

When Spurlock isn’t walking and talking on camera, “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” colorfully integrates the requisite amount of stock footage and film and television clips assiduously chosen for maximum giggles and guffaws. Additionally, the moviemaker enlists a parade of predominantly male talking heads to supply the sound bites, but the sheer number of academics paraded before Spurlock’s camera means that thinkers like Noam Chomsky only appear on screen for a few seconds, hardly enough time to say much of substance. Ralph Nader, tongue perhaps in cheek, accepts a pair of Merrells as self-described payola.

Contrasted with the academic scolds and critics, several Hollywood directors shrug their shoulders at the illusion of artistic autonomy and integrity when working for studios owned by massive multinationals. Quentin Tarantino, amusingly discusses being turned down by Denny’s for “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction.” “Rush Hour 3” director Brett Ratner, a man smart enough to know what he is selling despite the lingering aroma of rotting fish, seems unfazed by Spurlock’s softballs. Peter Berg name-checks Radiohead and Paul Thomas Anderson as exceptions to the rule while his own office clutter reminds us that one of his upcoming projects is a movie based on the board game “Battleship.”

Like Michael Moore, Spurlock is in and of himself a “brand,” another overworked point somewhat condescendingly beaten into the audience ad nauseam. Despite the movie’s dearth of penetrating insights, a visit to Sao Paulo, Brazil – a city whose elected officials initiated an almost complete prohibition on outdoor advertising – offers startling, science fiction-like visuals of a billboard-free landscape. Other moments, including integrated commercials for Spurlock’s sponsors and a time-warping visit with Jimmy Kimmel during which the talk show host quips that “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” is like the “Inception” of documentaries, are on the mark if a little exhausting: it’s tough to judge and evaluate the insidiousness of marketing by making a feature-length advertisement.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Francois Ozon’s broad – miles-wide broad – “Potiche” showcases the considerable talents of the treasured Catherine Deneuve. The iconic actress, whose career stretches back to the 1950s, has appeared in more than 100 movies, and has been directed by auteurs like Roman Polanski, Luis Bunuel, Francois Truffaut, and Lars von Trier. At the age of 67, Deneuve is as photogenic as ever, but the slight, flirtatious “Potiche” is unlikely to rank with Deneuve’s most memorable films. Pivoting on themes of empowerment and awakening while mired in stock plot devices orbiting around marital infidelities and soap opera-worthy questions of paternity, “Potiche” never explores very far beneath the surface of its cheery, colorful, stage-bound origins.

Ozon has adapted Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy’s 1980 play as a late-70s period piece to both accommodate the movie’s exaggerated sense of class divisions and to make room for the putty-like stretch of numerous farcical complications. The filmmaker, whose wide-ranging style includes several films that deal with psychologically and physically intricate considerations of sexuality (see Tim Palmer’s “Style and Sensation in the Contemporary French Cinema of the Body” for more), only flirts with some of the ideas that have juiced his better films, including “Swimming Pool” and “5×2.” “Potiche” is much closer to the director’s “8 Women,” the overburdened musical-comedy-murder-mystery featuring Deneuve alongside a veritable constellation of performers representing multiple generations of French movie royalty.

“Potiche” is also nowhere near the league of “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” in spite of Ozon’s heartfelt visual homage to the Jacques Demy classic. “Potiche” was made once before in 1983 for broadcast on French television, and Ozon’s updates and additions, including the lead character’s political campaign, don’t alter its essential flakiness in the least. As a study of the personal and professional renaissance of Suzanne Pujol, a “trophy” housewife whose knack for business blossoms when she takes managerial control of the family-owned umbrella factory led by her philandering husband, “Potiche” works best as evidence (albeit slight) that decent roles occasionally exist for women past ingenue age.

In contrast to Ozon’s more serious-minded films, “Potiche” launches a volley of subplots that pad the running time without adding a soupcon of substance. Very little earnest consideration is given to whether Mrs. Pujol loves and respects her condescending husband, an omission that mitigates the potency of old flame Maurice Babin (Gerard Depardieu, as blustery and bearish as ever). Mrs. Pujol’s adult children belong in another story entirely. Daughter Joelle (Judith Godreche) is responsible for a half-baked, nonsensical betrayal of her mother that exists merely as an excuse for a parent-child reconciliation conversation. Ambiguous sexual orientation is son Laurent’s (Jeremie Renier) raison d’etre, but the content of his scenes is handled so much like an afterthought that one longs for Ozon’s usually frank treatment of homosexuality.

Most of “Potiche” is played for easy laughs, and enjoyment of the film depends largely on tolerance levels for caricature and stereotype. The period vibe is effectively accomplished via hairstyles (Godreche’s feathered Farrah Fawcett coiffure is particularly well-engineered), clothing, and pop music, and one scene gamely places Deneuve and Depardieu on a light-up disco floor. Ozon also cannot resist one musical number for good measure, and although the moment is as artificial as everything else in “Potiche,” it is pleasurable to see Deneuve, who has recorded with Serge Gainsbourg, Malcolm McLaren, and Bjork, sing “C’est beau la vie” as the movie’s curtain call.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The most memorable scene in Xavier Beauvois’s “Of Gods and Men,” a symbolic “Last Supper” during which a group of doomed monks sips wine and listens to “Swan Lake” as tears well in their eyes, is representative of the polarizing qualities of the movie. The painfully earnest tableau, as protracted as the numerous depictions of quotidian existence inside the monastery, will strike some as an audacious emotional crescendo and others as a laughable explosion of bathos. Filmmaker Beauvois clearly makes no apologies for his unsubtle approach, but “Of Gods and Men” could use a lighter touch, particularly when it comes to the weighty matter of exploring questions of good and evil.

A fictionalized account loosely based on the 1996 murder of seven Trappist monks from the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria, “Of Gods and Men” focuses less on the historical details of the event – and its subsequent political controversy – than it does on the devoted daily chores and ministrations of the monks. Assuming a relentlessly one-sided point of view, Beauvois focuses entirely on the stubborn and dedicated constancy of the Catholic brotherhood without providing more than a tiny sliver of identification with the violent rebels (presumably meant to represent the Armed Islamic Group). Only a brief Christmas confrontation, during which the Muslim militiamen demand supplies from the monks and are refused, suggests reluctant mutual respect and understanding between the prior and the Islamist ringleader.

The Muslims in the film are nearly without exception divided into two categories: bloodthirsty, anti-government warmongers who terrorize the friars and socially moderate, impoverished villagers who rely on the Cistercians for medical care. Beauvois includes glimpses of representatives of the Algerian government, but the movie retreats from any civic or legislative lessons regarding the failures of French colonialism. Despite offers of protection, the monks refuse any help from the armed forces on religious grounds, revealing a conundrum that exposes the precariousness of their long-term presence in a violently contested Islamic realm.

Beauvois attempts to seed some internal conflict from the question of whether the monks will leave the monastery for the sake of personal safety, and at least two scenes are assigned to deliberations in which each padre speaks on behalf of either staying of going. In a film prone to interludes of windy sermonizing, the considered arguments and subsequent votes of the brotherhood momentarily furnish the viewer with tangible, human familiarity instead of impossible saintliness. Even though we know the decision and its outcome, the palpable fear of several of the monks intensifies the drama.

Lambert Wilson, as the leader of the monks, and Michael Lonsdale, as the monastery’s ailing medic, are the only two group members privileged with detailed individuation, although the wizened Amedee, played by Jacques Herlin, looks as though he stepped out of a Renaissance painting. The remaining members of the fraternity disappointingly blend together for much of the film, and some viewers will long for greater personalization. As a tale of martyrdom, “Of Gods and Men” won’t likely change many minds, no matter how one interprets Pascal’s thought (quoted in the film by Lonsdale’s Brother Luc) that “men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it for religious conviction.”

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Arriving roughly one year after the similarly themed “Kick-Ass,” “Super” continues the practice of aggressively self-aware mash-ups attempting to both satirize some aspects of comic book culture and wallow in the shocking violence that happens when an average citizen elects to pull on a costume and mask. “Kick-Ass” creator Mark Millar has magnanimously endorsed writer-director James Gunn’s “Super,” suggesting that the projects were developed independently and simultaneously, but the two movies share plenty of DNA. The concept of the frustrated nobody whose fortunes change (for good or bad) as the result of splitting one’s psyche into colorful crusader and secret identity deserves a great movie. “Super” is not it.

Rainn Wilson plays Frank, a luckless fry cook whose beautiful, recovering-addict wife (Liv Tyler) relapses and takes up with an odious drug dealer (Kevin Bacon). Energized by the fictional adventures of the Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion), a Christian super hero on cable TV, Frank stitches together a makeshift disguise, arms himself with a wrench, and becomes the Crimson Bolt. As news of the Bolt’s head-cracking exploits attracts some media attention and the hero’s leg attracts some lead, Frank reluctantly agrees to take on comic book store employee Libby (Ellen Page) as his crime-fighting sidekick. Christened “Boltie,” Libby’s alter ego unleashes a torrent of manic, out of control rage that makes Frank’s own loony solo missions look conservative by comparison.

Page’s enthusiastic characterization is among the bright spots of “Super,” and the hyperactive zeal with which Libby doles out “justice” results in a string of bone-crushing gags sure to elicit delighted shrieks of glee from the demographic familiar with Gunn’s Troma Entertainment roots. Released without a rating from the MPAA, the content of “Super” is no more graphic than dozens of horror titles, but a significant portion of the movie’s notably small budget was certainly earmarked for gaping head wounds.

The problem with “Super” is not the explicitness of the shocking violence, but the haphazard application of tone in the commission of mayhem. Frank’s glum fatalism contrasts sharply with Libby’s insubordinate rebelliousness, and the odd coupling – especially Libby’s attraction to Frank – is only superficially explained. Gunn’s streamlined, simplified focus on Frank’s goal of the rescue of and reconciliation with his wife comes to blows with the capricious arrangement of expository flashbacks and clock-padding montages. Most of the secondary characters are tired stock staples, from Michael Rooker’s thug to Gregg Henry’s cop. Hearts will break for Andre Royo, magnificent as Bubbles on “The Wire,” but magnificently wasted here.

Gunn also teases the viewer with flickers of emotional credibility only to hastily retreat any time Frank threatens to earn our sympathy. Following an earnest scene in which Libby’s romantic overtures are gently rejected out of Frank’s loyalty and fidelity to his wife, Gunn includes a perplexing interlude of coercive sexual imposition seemingly for the payoff that allows him to create a vision in the chunks of vomit floating in a toilet. “Super” is filled with off-color moments like this one, and while the ends can be funny, the means to achieving them are clumsy and confounding.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Both perverse and perversely funny, Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Dogtooth” provides the curious viewer with a singular and all but impossible-to-forget experience. With each of its meticulously composed frames, the movie announces an ambitious technical agenda, matched shot for shot by an imaginative story often read as a kind of cautionary tale exploring the hazards of parental overprotection. The director also establishes a resolute moral distance from his subjects – accomplished in part via lengthy static takes – and Lanthimos’s refusal to judge their behavior, which includes the explicit exploration of the societal taboo of brother/sister incest, unsettlingly sanctioned and arranged by both mother and father, cements the film as a challenging and cerebral exercise.

Inside the well-appointed compound of a middle-aged businessman (Christos Stergioglou) and his wife (Michele Valley), a trio of adult children interacts with one another through the games, make-believe, and competition familiar to pre-teens. Subjected to all manner of inexplicable lessons and harsh punishments, the siblings study vocabulary tapes in which common meanings for words are replaced seemingly at whim (a “sea is a leather armchair” and a “motorway is a very strong wind”). Lanthimos deliberately erases any trace of history, background, and motive for this unorthodox upbringing, allowing the viewer to discover the contours of this strange enclave as the film unfolds.

Lanthimos rapidly makes clear that the now-grown offspring have never left the confines of their walled asylum and the unintended consequence of remaining within such a strict and shielded haven is a pressure-fueled tendency for the “kids” to act out with startling and unexpected violence. Further evidence of the family’s irregularity manifests in the visits of Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou), the only character in the film identified by name. Hired by the father to satisfy the sexual urges of his son (Hristos Passalis), Christina sparks a series of changes experienced by the eldest daughter (Aggeliki Papoulia). Among the most transformative influences brought by Christina from the outside world is a series of VHS rentals of several Hollywood movies, including “Jaws,” “Rocky” and “Flashdance,” that inspires an intense, hysterical, and physical mania that threatens the father’s sovereign grip.

“Dogtooth” comments on gender in a variety of interesting ways, from the fierce and unchallenged authority of the powerful patriarch to the favoritism and entitlement enjoyed by the male child. When the brood misbehaves or disappoints, mother threatens to give birth to more family members, including a dog. Most tellingly, only the son’s carnal desires are acknowledged by the parents, while matters of sex for both female children are intentionally neglected until the young women are called to service the brother (following inspection, he chooses the older of the two). Lanthimos shrewdly assigns the emergent point of view to the senior sister, whose own sexual activity ironically accounts in part for the collapse of the carefully constructed universe.

The success of “Dogtooth” sprouts from its woozy blend of humor and horror, and like David Lynch’s “Eraserhead,” the movie makes us laugh nervously at the recognition of the familiar as filtered through the distorted, the bizarre, and the grotesque. By assigning a peculiar kind of forced emotional and developmental impediment upon the “children,” Lanthimos invites us to consider the space, as well as the differences and similarities, between youth and adulthood. The childlike and often childish actions of the principal threesome mirror the familiar expectations, skewed logic and playful transactions of pre-adolescence, uncannily magnified by the physical maturity of the performers. “Dogtooth” is blackly comic but never bleak, and pays substantial rewards for appreciators of the absurd.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The oft-filmed “Jane Eyre,” which has been treated cinematically since at least 1910, tells a tale so compelling and romantic that very little time passes between productions. It has been only five years since Susanna White’s four-episode Masterpiece Theater edition, but filmmaker Cary Fukunaga, whose Mara Salvatrucha-focused feature debut “Sin Nombre” seems as far away from 19th century England as possible, crafts a handsome and engaging version of Charlotte Bronte’s famous novel that should please “Eyre” enthusiasts and newcomers alike. Although Fukunaga’s rendering of “Jane Eyre” will not be the last, it has already taken its place as one of the best.

Mia Wasikowska deftly interprets the title character through Jane’s considerable intelligence, desire for knowledge, and the “direct gaze” that accompanies Ms. Eyre’s candid observations and brutal honesty – and so transfixes her employer. Michael Fassbender’s charisma threatens to get in the way of some of Edward Fairfax Rochester’s brooding introspection, but the talented performer discovers the necessary balance between kindness and entitlement as well as genuine remorse and self-pity. Of course, both actors are gorgeous creatures far lovelier than the Jane and Rochester of the novel, and despite visual evidence to the contrary, one really believes Wasikowska when she unloads the speech containing the line, “Do you think that because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little that I am soulless and heartless?”

The range, scope, and scale of ideological concerns and genre territory carved out by Bronte provide interpreters with seemingly endless possibilities, allowing moviemakers the luxury of choosing any number of themes to explore with each new screen iteration of “Jane Eyre.” Eroticism and piety, fidelity and duplicity, and discrimination and equality are but a trio of ingenious contrasts addressed in the book’s pages. Fukunaga and screenwriter Moira Buffini alight decisively on Ms. Eyre’s sexual awakening without shortchanging core aspects of the novel’s social agenda. The filmmakers recognize Jane’s emerging concupiscence with subtlety and care, although one bold addition shows the artistically minded Jane regarding a framed nude with curiosity.

The most passionate fans of the novel will lament the loss of so many of Bronte’s exquisitely rendered scenes (imagine what Fassbender might have done with Rochester-disguised-as-gypsy), and the movie’s breathless stride demonstrates a certain ruthlessness on the part of Buffini. By reconfiguring the order of some key events via flashback, the movie briskly manages Jane’s transition from childhood at the miserable Lowood Institution to her appointment as governess at Thornfield Hall. With the exception of the heartbreaking fate of Helen Burns and a few other fleeting details, most of Jane’s boarding school trials have been truncated or excised altogether.

Additionally, Buffini smartly streamlines the entire post-Bertha Mason revelation episode, racing past much of St. John’s pushy and presumptuous pursuit of Jane’s hand and snipping out the revelation of Jane’s actual familial relationship to the Rivers family. By managing the events following Jane’s flight from Thornfield as a framing device, Fukunaga is able to place the film’s resolution much closer to the explosive climax of the story, a tactic in keeping with the film’s efficient pacing. The structural alterations, along with evocative sound and production design, Adriano Goldman’s sumptuous photography and Fukunaga’s commanding visual style, enthusiastically recommend this “Jane Eyre.”