Vanity: Period Drama Review - Return of the Native - 1994

YouTube ^ | December 30, 2020 | Me

[C19fan]

I remember seeing commercials for this adaptation of the Thomas Hardy classic, if me memory was right, on CBS. I thought it quite weird at the time that one of the the major broadcasters would even put a Brit period drama on a primetime slot when that was the exclusive purview of PBS. The novel does have a special place in my soul. When I first read it 30 years ago, I was awestruck by Hardy's introduction of the raven haired bewitching beauty Eustacia Vye. I have never read anything since that is as romantic and dramatic of an introduction as what Hardy wrote. I have completed my 2nd reading as part of a small group read via the Good Reads app. As luck would have it, someone uploaded the complete movie from 1994 onto YouTube; link provided in post. The thing that startled me was to see a young Catherine Zeta Jones and Clive Owen playing Miss Eustacia and Damon Wildeve. The British character actress playing Mrs. Yeobright looked familiar and she is Joan Plowright. The actor playing Mr. Clym Yeobright, who fans from the HBO series Rome might recognize, is Ray Stevenson. Despite what looks like a promising cast this movie is blighted by a poor screenplay and/or directing resulting in wooden dialogue and frankly some really sappy moments. The movie also minimizes some of the butterfly effect moments that are huge plot drivers in this and the other tragic Hardy novels. For example, in the novel when Clym discovers that Eustacia refused to open the door for his mother and a man was also present at the cottage, he gets violent smashing a desk to look for illicit letters. In this version, that violence has disappeared. The best thing going for this adaptation was it was filmed at Exmoor National Park. The moorland scenery is quite beautiful. Hardy in the novel correctly predicts people, now living in cities, would start to admire the austere beauty of places like this. For whatever reason, this novel has been neglected for adaptation. There are multiple adaptations of "Far from the Madding Crowd", and "Tess of the d'Urbervilles". One would think the novel would make compelling material for an on screen treatment with the opening during Guy Fawkes night, the beauty of the heath, and one of the most seductive female characters in literary history. But alas, one is stuck with this version from a quarter century ago. On my scale of 1 to 5 bonnets, I would rate this 2 bonnets.

[UnwashedPeasant]

Catherine Zeta Jones looking mighty good.