Jane Eyre - 1934

When our video game crashed, my mom and I looked for something to watch. We were scrolling through the Classics genre, and Mom mentioned she hadn't seen this version of Jane Eyre. And she's apparently seen a lot of them. I was a bit skeptical. The runtime is barely over an hour. There's a lot to cover in that time.

Where do I start? I've seen three (and own two) adaptations of this book, so I'm pretty familiar with the general plot points. This movie takes a few of them and discards the rest. They take characters, mostly Rochester, and ignores their story arcs and personalities. More on that later.

With only an hour to work with, you'd think they would focus on some of the more important plot points, but nope. Instead I saw Jane on a buggy ride with a character I've never seen before and Rochester climb up a tree to rescue Adele who has her foot stuck.

While I saw a lot of the characters act differently, the biggest offender was Rochester. He is normally broody and grouchy, but in this version he is instantly cordial and stares at Jane sweetly. He adores Adele and is actually her uncle in the movie. And his hat is miraculous. No matter what the man goes through, that hat stays on!

A couple of times in the super long hour, I did laugh. Once was when Adele was skipping up and down the little sidewalk and then keels over on a little grass hill. I don't know how to describe it, but it was like the Leaning Tower of Pisa falling in slow motion. Then Adele starts wailing like she just broke her leg. No way that hurt that much. The other time was probably my favorite. Bertha's entrance was the strangest thing, and I'm not sure who thought it was a good idea. Keep in mind up to this point, there have been some screams, manic laughter, and Rochester's bed was set on fire. When Rochester and Jane are planning their wedding, Bertha glides into the room, raises an arm, and says, "my husband!" She looked real good, too.

Overall, this was so loosely based on Jane Eyre as to not really be an adaptation. Mom said she'd seen six previous versions and this was by far the worst. We'll never get that hour back. I thought The Snow Creature was going to be the worst thing I'd seen in the past 24 hours, but I was wrong. Never doubt things can get worse.