JUDE (47)

Directed by: Michael Winterbottom

Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Kate Winslet, Rachel Griffiths

The Pitch: In 19th-century England, a young stonemason dreams of going to university to become a scholar, but is thwarted by the rigid oppression of the class system.

Theo Sez: Intelligent but rather desultory adaptation of Hardy's last - and most unremittingly pessimistic - novel, suffused with the desire to move beyond the conventionally staid costume picture (even its main title is in-your-face, filling the screen with massive white-on-black letters) but not really doing very much about it. Winterbottom finds some neat touches - like showing Jude's unhappy marriage to Arabella in a single cut, from the camera pressed against their entwined bodies to a wide-shot of a barren, wintry landscape - but soon succumbs to the stately, unvarying rhythm endemic to this genre, starting a scene on a clock sounding four o'clock (all four peals, ve-e-ry slowly) or holding on to DP Eduardo Serra's glorious sunsets just a mite too long. Above all the film is unable to bring its hero into focus, alternately calling him a Don Quixote-like dreamer (but he doesn't really pursue his dreams) or a St. Stephen-like martyr (but for what cause?). Its theme seems to be the changing world of the late 19th century, modern ideas starting to displace post-feudal superstitions ("That's an old wives' tale," says Jude to his elderly aunt; "Are you telling me you don't believe in them now?" she replies) ; Jude, victim of prudery and repressive, know-your-place social mores, is the classic case of a man born before his time, and is inevitably visited with divine punishment (the death of his kids, among the most shocking scenes in recent movies), God being of course a construct used for social oppression. That at least is what it might be about, for this muddled movie never quite manages to collect its various promising strands into a clear message. It's interesting, but in many ways the title of Hardy's original novel would've been far more appropriate for it : "Jude the Obscure".