Far From The Maddening Crowd (2015)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 119 minutes
Directed by: Thomas Vinterberg
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge, Juno Temple, Rowan Hedley, Chris Gallarus, Connor Webb, Penny-Jane Swift
KRS Releasing Ltd
Far From The Maddening Crowd sees Danish director Thomas Vinterberg take on the fourth adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel. The result is a splendid movie that reflects the novel’s inner soul and is complemented by a set of powerful performances and a dreamy state of affairs. It’s also a movie of contrasts that elicits succinctly the differences in society and between different characters and what they can achieve in life.
The film also shows that the elfin and doe-eyed looking Carey Mulligan can be given something different to chew her acting skills on and here she comes out looking more versatile and bewitching than ever before.
Mulligan plays the central character of Bathsheba Everdene, a young woman who is resolute in her will at a time when women were not expected to be so.
She is lacking any monetary backing and so, as 19th century society dictates, she needs to marry. Throughout the film she will be faced by three different suitors, reflecting the different classes – but Bathsheba is looking for love as the reason to marry. Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a farmer from Dorset and he is the neighbour to her aunt. Later events will see her relationship with Gabriel and their roles in society reversed.
When Bathsheba’s standing in society changes, due to her inheriting land, Bathsheba’s character also changes. Two other interested parties enter into this dating game from yesteryear: young and reckless Sergeant Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge), who is going through a rough patch when he was left at the wrong end of the stick by another girl, Fanny Robin (Juno Temple); and the mature Mr Boldwood (Michael Sheen), who is also a farmer but a wealthy one.
The film is well edited, compact and never lets in to sprawling tendencies that the genre usually elicits
The path of the novel is well known but the difference here is that this romance epic becomes more than just a love story. Thomas Hardy had revelled in his depiction of society and the inner turmoil of people lost in the confines of their social standing.
This is something that is understood perfectly by Thomas Vinterberg who leaves space enough for his characters to develop into something more than just romantic picture perfect moments.
Vinterberg makes maximum use of his actress giving her space to show strength and resoluteness even in moments when there seems to be nothing going on.
Vinterberg invests heavily in the romantic fantasy aspect of it and gives a modern varnish to this lassic tale.
He also pulls off sequences that could have easily been mismanaged from page to screen with success. One case in particular is the swordsmanship show given by Sergeant Troy to Batheshba with metaphors flying all over the place and, in Mulligan’s ingénue looks, reinforces the impact of the hedonist show.
Schoenarts emerges as a protagonist that is worthy of his character suitably strong and ideal and yet bumbling and inadequate at the same time.
Michael Sheen as the very different Boldwood also put his stamp on the adaptation. The film is well edited, compact and never lets in to sprawling tendencies that the genre usually elicits.
Overall the film is never undone by its source and the expectations that are inadvertently laid on it.
He balances well the romance with the tragic, the mundane with the idyllic vision of the rural areas.
In doing so he delivers a period movie that becomes much more relevant and is not simply another exercise in actors dressing up in pretty period frocks and frills.