FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (Thomas Vinterberg) Rating-: NNNN
Where to watch: iTunes
After breaking out in An Education, Carey Mulligan’s lead roles haven’t fully capitalized on her spirited, fiercely independent persona.
Until now. As Bathsheba Everdene, the headstrong centre of Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd, Mulligan is magnetic. She’s in nearly every scene of the two-hour film and has not one but three men to play against. Not to mention sharing the screen with some gorgeous landscapes evoking 19th century Dorset.
Ably adapted by novelist David Nicholls, the swiftly moving script tells the story of Bathsheba’s rise from modest country girl to a woman running a farm.
On her journey she crosses paths with the capable, hunky sheep farmer Gabriel Oak (Rust And Bone’s Matthias Schoenaerts), uptight landowner William Boldwood (Michael Sheen, toning down his natural charisma) and the dashing, dangerous Sergeant Troy (Tom Sturridge).
The story’s arc is pure Harlequin -romance, but it’s given a sheen of respectability by Hardy’s words and Thomas Vinterberg’s lush direction. There’s a fencing sequence in a forest whose sexual symbolism will quicken your breath.
Some of the tension slackens in the middle, but that’s just so the pieces are in place for the conclusion. And Mulligan’s performance, complete with a haunting a cappella version of a country ditty, could just erase memories of Julie Christie’s Bathsheba from nearly half a century ago. 118 minutes.
