Jane Eyre
Focus Features | Release Date: March 11, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critics
Positive:
30
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 11, 2011
Jane Eyre is a passionate, impossible love story, one of the most romantic ever told. But it's also a cold, wild story about destruction, madness and loss, and this movie captures its divided spirit like none before. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 10, 2011
A splendid example of how to tackle the daunting duty of turning a beloved work of classic literature into a movie. Neither a radical updating nor a stiff exercise in middlebrow cultural respectability, Mr. Fukunaga's film tells its venerable tale with lively vigor and an astute sense of emotional detail. Read full review
90
MovielineStephanie ZacharekMar 10, 2011
Sex is threatening, as Brontë knew, and Wasikowska and Fassbender make this particular dance look exceedingly dangerous. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 10, 2011
Almost everything about Cary Fukunaga's version of the Charlotte Brontë romance is understated yet transfixing, mainly-although far from exclusively-because of Mia Wasikowska's presence in the title role. Read full review
90
Village VoiceKarina LongworthMar 8, 2011
Fukunaga has made his Jane Eyre an intimate, thoughtful epic, anchored by strong lead performances and the gorgeous, moody 100-shades-of-gray cinematography of Adriano Goldman. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 17, 2011
This may not be the greatest movie version of the novel, but it's possibly the truest. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMar 16, 2011
He's (Fukunaga) a director with a sure visual sense, here expressed in voluptuous visuals and ambitious art direction. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigMar 10, 2011
The look of this version may be the finest of the 27 Jane Eyre film and television re-tellings. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesMar 17, 2011
The new version of Jane Eyre is far and away the best I've seen, thanks largely to the skilled young actress Mia Wasikowska. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid DenbyMar 12, 2011
This austere production has fire enough; it captures the elemental Bronte passions. [14 March 2011, p. 79]
80
TimeRichard CorlissMar 12, 2011
This remake hits the jackpot with Wasikowska (pronounced VashiKOVska) and, not far behind, Fassbender. Read full review
80
SlateDana StevensMar 10, 2011
Fukunaga's vision of Jane Eyre is refreshingly un-Gothic. Though all the story elements are in place for a thunder-on-the-moors-style gloomfest (and though there are, in fact, several thunderstorms on moors), this film is low on Romantic atmospherics and flooded with natural light. Read full review
80
Time OutKeith UhlichMar 8, 2011
The film builds to a shattering climax that works precisely because all involved fully embrace the melodrama. Be sure to bring Kleenex. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMar 7, 2011
Fassbender cuts a more prosaic, realistic figure as the tormented, romantic Rochester than did the screen's most celebrated performer of the role, Orson Welles, in the effective 1944 version. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenMar 24, 2011
Perhaps every decade gets the Jane Eyre it deserves: Is the emphasis of conscience over passion emblematic of our times? Read full review
75
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottApr 1, 2011
Complemented by striking, well-conceived visuals, in Fukunaga's hands Bronte's tale of love and woe becomes one well worth repeating. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn LevyMar 24, 2011
Is it dreary, stingy and strained? Well, yes: it's Jane Eyre, after all. But it's also robust and full-blooded and forceful: it's Jane Eyre, after all. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyMar 24, 2011
A seven-word review: Very good performances. Much too much weather. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenMar 17, 2011
There are many good reasons why the world doesn't need yet another adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte classic. Yet they all pale before the one great reason why it does – the chance to marvel at Wasikowska's performance. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 17, 2011
I couldn't help but feel this adaptation needed more of the thing for which Jane herself yearns: a sense of freedom. At their best, though, Wasikowska and Fassbender hint at their well-worn characters' inner lives, which are complex, unruly and impervious to time. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 14, 2011
Jane Eyre is good enough to provide lovers of classic literature with a reason to venture to theaters without being subjected to a salacious or demeaning adaptation. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickMar 11, 2011
After 160 years, this is a story that still grips the heart and the mind. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 10, 2011
Fukunaga, son of a Japanese father and a Swedish mother, is a filmmaker to watch. He has reanimated a classic for a new generation, letting Jane Eyre resonate with terror and tenderness. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelMar 19, 2011
What he (Fukunaga) doesn't deliver, however, is a fresh take on an often-told love story. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 10, 2011
With Fassbender's charisma igniting his costar as well as himself, these sparring interchanges, both captivating and entertaining, are where this Jane Eyre finally catches fire. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazineJohn P. McCarthyMar 10, 2011
Cary Joji Fukunaga's romantic thriller Jane Eyre is to 19th-century literature what "Black Swan" is to ballet: a thoroughly cinematic, occasionally exhilarating reimagining of a repertoire standard. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 7, 2011
Wasikowska's Jane is as watchful as only a damaged soul can be, and, when challenged, frighteningly fast. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangMar 7, 2011
The candlelight flickers exquisitely even as the passions are slow to ignite in this spare, shrewdly acted but not especially vital retelling of Jane Eyre. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanMar 9, 2011
The film never conveys that something larger is at work - like, say, the hand of fate. And without that, there's more busyness than beauty to Brontë. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 17, 2011
While qualifying as the most gorgeously appointed and finely detailed version of the novel so far, still lacks the element of essential fire to make it come fully, even subversively, to life. Read full review
60
EmpireIan NathanSep 5, 2011
There's no question it's stunningly mounted, and Wasikowska makes a much stronger Jane than Alice, but the romance is overripe and the climax underdone. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanMar 11, 2011
Much is left undeveloped, from Jane's ghostly anxieties to Rochester's evolving complexity. Wasikowska and Fassbender lack chemistry, and the latter never finds his character's depth. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMar 12, 2011
The latest cinematic adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel, is like "Masterpiece Theater" without the masterpiece. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonMar 10, 2011
Wasikowska doesn't seem much changed from her "Alice" role, and she trips through Jane's adulthood as though it were a fantasia instead of a moody suspense story. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 17, 2011
This latest adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë novel is careful, respectful and even enjoyable, and yet dry, singularly humorless and played without the lavishness of spirit that makes sense of Gothic melodrama. Read full review
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