Movie: Jane Eyre (2011)
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Mia Wasikowska
Director: Cary Fukunaga
In Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, I personally found Mia Wasikowska to be pretty but a bit wooden. She definitely had an ethereal and delicate quality to her, but beyond that shallow surface, I didn't see much spark.
Nothing could be further from the truth in the latest Jane Eyre directed by Cary Fukunaga. Mia Waskiowska inhabits each scene with a calm ferocity that feels perfect for the complicated and, at times, hard to pin down heroine of Bronte's novel. Jane Eyre is the type of girl that we are actually all very familiar with - which is what makes her such an interesting choice of protagonist for a gothic tale. She isn't melodramatic or flighty. She isn't conventionally pretty or striking. She's not ever exceptionally brilliant. She's level-headed and rational and keeps her feelings tightly held to her out of necessity. This last part is where the difficulty comes in in terms of casting her character in a movie role. We have to have both - coolness and passion without being heavy-handed or engaged in annoying, fickle mood swings. Wasikowska manages to sit calmly and act with only her eyes.
