Far from the Madding Crowd Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I always had a weak spot for Thomas Vinterberg's work and since there was a really nice cast involved, I was quite eager to check it out. I have to admit that I haven't read Thomas Hardy's classic book but I did see an older adaptation directed by John Schlesinger and starring Julie Christie and, to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of this story. With this version, they decided to show Bathsheba Everdene as a woman ahead of her time, some kind of early feminist, which was, at first, an interesting approach. Indeed, within this context, even if it was a bold move for the time period, it was rather understandable that she would refuse the marriage proposals of two men she barely knew at the time and because she wasn’t ready to get hitched yet. However, this whole approach was completely ruined by the fact that, for some reasons, she did accept to marry a 3rd guy for some rather obscure reasons. Indeed, why did she get married with Francis Troy? Because he was so romantic? To be honest, it is rather hard to take this argument seriously since she had spent maybe 10 mins with the guy. To make things worse, on her wedding night, she was already regretting her decision... Of course, you could argue that it was the whole point, to show Bathsheba as a fascinating but also flawed woman but, eventually, I had a hard time to really root for her and, at some point, you might wonder why all these guys were actually chasing her. Still, I have to admit that the directing was fine and Vinterberg had delivered here a really gorgeous movie to look at. Furthermore, even though the characters in this tale might seem weak or poorly developed, I still think that the cast involved did deliver some really solid performances (Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge). Anyway, to conclude, even if I didn't care much for this tale, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you really like the genre.