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The Return of the NativeRating:
Release Date: 21 May, 2002 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (8 total) |
The Return of the Native Reviews
Somewhere along the way...,
between making this movie 10+ years ago and getting cast as the co-lead in HBO's current series "Rome," Ray Stevenson (Clym Yeobirght) learned to act. But this, as Titus Pullo would say, is cac...
It's not all Stevenson's fault. Catherine Z-J, as Eustacia Vye, is dreadful as well, as is most of the dialogue. The film can't even make the Wessex landscape look pretty.
For a really great adaptation of a Hardy novel, see Far from the Madding Crowd with Nathaniel Parker and Paloma Baeza. Or - better yet - just read the books.
A Very, Very Poor Rendition of Hardy's Story
The director and script destroy both the insightful plot and character development of Hardy's brilliant novel. Where Hardy describes Wildeve as "one in whom women find nothing of which to object and in whom men find nothing to admire," Clive Owen's intensity and over-acting destroy the character and characteristic aloofness of Hardy's ambivalent and ordinary Wildeve. And compared to Hardy's complex and nuanced Eustacia, the Eustacia of the movie is revoltingly unprincipled and unsympathetic. It is difficult to imagine that Gold has any understand of Thomas Hardy or the Late Victorians. Gold would have done better to direct a Harlequin Romance. The only things this film has in common with the novel are its title, character names, and location.
More Customer Reviews (10 total)
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