Jane Eyre (2006)

Jane Eyre is a tough adaptation. You need a host of competent actors for the minor roles, good child actors and a brooding, fiery Bronte hero for Rochester, capable of attaching a variety of women and inspiring devotion in one of literature's great heroines. There have been plenty of great Rochesters, Orson Welles and William Hurt to name but two, and Toby Stephens may be another. The ladies certainly seem to think so. But in Ruth Wilson we may finally have a memorable Jane Eyre. An actress who is strikingly beautiful but not superficially pretty. Who can look dour and empty, who is beli…

This was Ruth Wilson's breakout role, her first out of drama school. Producer Diederick Santer said they stopped looking for actresses the moment Ruth walked into to room and from more or less the first moment she appears on screen, you can see why. Jane Eyre is a tough adaptation. You need a host of competent actors for the minor roles. Look how much Pam Ferris brings in the role of servant, Grace Poole. You need good child actors. Hester Odgers and Georgie Henley work wonders in a few small minutes on screen. Most of all, there has to be a brooding, fiery, Brontëesque hero for Rochester,…