By William Wolf

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD  Send This Review to a Friend

I very much enjoy watching Carey Mulligan whether she is on stage or screen. I saw her twice live in “Skylight,” once in London and then this season on Broadway. Now she is with us in the film “Far From the Madding Crowd,” directed by Thomas Vinterberg from David Nicholls’s screenplay based on the 1874 novel by Thomas Hardy. Once again, she is riveting, probably the main reason to watch the movie.

Reaching back into the files, I found that in reviewing the 1967 version of Hardy’s work directed by John Schlesinger, I had praised its attributes (Julie Christie played the role now performed by Mulligan, with Peter Finch and Alan Bates also in the cast), but noted that it was two long (two hours, 48 minutes). Vinterberg’s version has come in at two hours. Apart from Mulligan’s acting, other good major performances and a lovely portrait of farming country in 19th century England, there is an overall blandness that puts the final result in the so-so category. Still, the film is very watchable.

Mulligan plays Bathsheba Everdene, whose inheritance of her uncle’s farm puts her in a position of wealth. She has a strong sense of wanting to be independent, her own woman not dependent on a man, and therefore is hesitant about marrying. But there are three suitors, each with a different kind of temptation. The most appealing, at least from an audience viewpoint, is Gabriel Oak, played by the good-looking, excellent actor Matthias Schoenaerts, whose economic status is ruined when his sheep escape and go over a cliff. Gabriel goes to work for Bathsheba, to whom he had unsuccessfully proposed earlier. Gabriel has his pride, but he continues to harbor love for Bathsheba and wants to remain loyal to her, even when she doesn’t want to take his advice. At one point she fires him, only to realize she still needs him.

Michael Sheen as William Boldwood, a well fixed farm owner, also would like to marry Bathsheba and waits patiently in hope of an opportunity to do so. Meanwhile, her romantic feelings and sexuality are stirred by a soldier, Sergeant Frank Troy, played by Tom Sturridge, who had been in love with another young woman, Fanny, but a missed connection doomed their relationship. Gabriel warns Bathsheba against Frank, but she doesn’t listen. He is handsome and irrepressible, also with a hint of danger, exhibited when he shows her his superb skill at swordplay, his thrusts suggesting sex. But once married, Frank quickly becomes despotic.

As various situations develop through thick and thin, deaths and some heavy plotting, all the while our getting a feeling of what it was like to be in English farming country in that era, Bathsheba’s romantic life is un-entangled and committed to what for her would seem to be the right choice. For us, too.

I can’t say that Mulligan looks especially like my conception of the farming kind, but it is pleasurable to watch her go through the various phases of Bathsheba’s life. Whether smiling, frowning or just listening, her expressions are always interesting, and she also meets each dramatic demand with the assurance of a fine actress who strikes exactly the right tone. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release. Reviewed May 1, 2015.

  

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