Jude (1996)
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1996 Ben Hoffman
Director Winterbottom says of Thomas Hardy's classic novel, "I think the most impressive thing about Hardy is that he takes very ordinary people in very ordinary circumstances, puts them through the most extraordinary experiences and transforms them into heroes and heroines. "
When Jude Fawley was a teenager (Ross Colvin Turnbull)) his ambition was to go to a good college. This was encouraged by a professor Phillotson (Liam Cunningham) . (As an adult, Jude is played by Christopher Eccleston.) This was in the eighteen hundreds when a good education was looked upon as the way out of one's humdrum life which, in the case of Jude, was that of a stone mason.
As nothing ever goes smoothly, Jude is seduced by Arabella Donn (Rachel Griffiths), the daughter of a local pig farmer. He and Arabella, with whom he really has nothing in common, marry. . . and the marriage ends in failure. Jude decides to leave for Christminster, a prestigious school, where he can study and still earn some money as a stone mason. There he meets a cousin, Sue Bridehead (the lovely Kate Winslet) and he falls for her charm, wit and beauty.
That should have made everything wonderful for them but Sue loses her job and Jude makes the big mistake of introducing her to Phillotson in the hope that he will employ her as an assistant in his school. But soon Sue and Phillotson are seeing a lot of each other. Although she really loves Jude, when he tells her that he had been married it puts a crimp in their relationship. Remember this was not the 1960s and thereafter. What follows is the story's tragic denouement and a real tragedy it is..
Fine acting all around. Directed by Michael Winterbottom.
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