[7.1/10] Maybe it was a mistake to watch this adaptation so soon after reading the novel. The best parts of the book are things that are difficult to replicate on film: Thomas Hardy’s wonderful prose, and the depth of feeling that comes from being inside his characters’ heads, showing the layers of complexity within their thoughts and hopes, Tess especially. Film and television have their own advantages, the visuals and body language being chief among them, but they leave so much out of what makes a novel like Tess so singular.
I can't help but feel like so much in this first episode of the miniseries is softer and broader.
Softer because Alec seems much more pleasant, much less predatory, much more dashing in his interactions with Tess before he assaults her than in the book. Alec gets more focus writ large than Hardy gave him. That's a choice I can respect.
There have been plenty of adaptations of Tess over the years. The central question of doing a new one ought to be “What new take or angle can we bring to this material?” Exploring more of Alec’s backstory, his relationship with his mother, his interest in Tess from his perspective, is something different. It makes him more of a full-fledged character rather than an antagonist composed of a bundle of simple, if unctuous, impulses. That's unique, and I can appreciate the creative team taking a swing.
But I won’t lie, it makes me a bit uncomfortable how they portray Alec here. The producers already stack the deck a little by casting Hans Matheson, who cuts the figure of a hunk from a CW teen drama more than he does the rougher, more imposing persona from the book. Television has coasted for years on putting attractive people in the same frame and letting sparks fly. And with Matheson’s softer, more earnest portrayal, matched with the added exploration this adaptation gives him, it’s hard not to blanch a little at the miniseries seemingly cushioning a rapist, if not outright excusing him.
Part of the problem for me is in how they play Tess in response to all this. To me, she seems more charmed by Alec than affronted or disturbed by him before the assault. Sure, there’s her awkward kiss in the horse cart. But I don’t know, there’s a lot more long looks where both sides seem to make goo goo eyes at one another (including in the opening seen with Angel) than there are in the novel.This Tess is a bit flustered by Alec, certainly, but doesn’t seem as uncomfortable by his affections as her literary equivalent did.
Some of the problem is in how Gemma Arterton plays Tess for most of this first episode. When I say broader, that includes how her interpretation of the character feels even more naive and strangely affected than even the book lays out. She’s a twenty-two-year-old actress playing a sixteen-year-old character, and as a result, she has this Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man problem where her mannerisms and tics meant to create the effect of immaturity and youth come off as weird, artificial put-ons. This Tess feels huffy, even bratty, like an easily-upset ten-year-old more than the provincial but hard-lived young woman from the novel.
That's not the only thing made broader. Her parents feel more like cartoon characters, or even a mom and dad from a goofy sitcom, than they do real-if-flawed individuals. The other maids at the d’Urberville manor (composite characters from the book) are exaggerated mean girls. Even the moment where she gets into a fight before Alec “rescues” her, which is an incident of supreme desperation in the source material, feels like a weightless scuffle here.
That said, the rape, which Hardy elides in the novel, is depicted with the right blend of tastefulness and terror here. It isn’t lurid by any means (unlike the infamous strawberry scene), but it is appropriately impressionistic and horrifying in conveying what shocking abuses are inflicted on Tess in the process.
And suddenly, the adaptation makes a turn for the better. I want to give the miniseries the most charitable read possible. It’s possible we get a softer and broader take on the story at first to mark a contrast with how much harsher and realer things get from there.
I don’t love the softening of Alec, but there is a, if you’ll pardon my being a philistine, Buffy-esque quality to having a more charming, if liberty-taking suitor, who then turns out to be a monster. The miniseries doesn’t lean into the sense of predation as much as I might like, but maybe that makes his sexual assault that much more shocking, putting us in the shoes of Tess and not seeing it coming, rather than the tense dramatic irony in the novel where the reader can sense the danger even more than Tess can.
Likewise, I was ready to write off Arterton as a bad performer in the role, but what she does after Tess’ assault is stunning. The non-verbal acting in Tess’ shock and bewilderment after the event is outstanding. Her recriminations to Alec when he tries to make amends afterward come with the appropriate amount of fire and scorn. And her scene with her mother, where she laments that she wasn’t prepared to defend against such things by someone who should have known better and looked out for her, comes with the right blend of legitimate anger and pathos.
So I’m apt to chalk up Arterton’s unavailing childlike performance in the first part of the miniseries as a deliberate choice -- there to mark the contrast between the wide-eyed innocent girl who doesn’t suspect Alec’s lustful intentions, to the traumatized and disillusioned young woman who emerges in the wake of such abuse. I can't pretend to like the early part of the performance, but the later part is quite good, and I can appreciate the choice to let the tone of the performance signal the change in Tess’ disposition.
Overall, this is still a take on the material that I can appreciate intellectually more than I outright like it. But I also admire adaptations that take pains to put their own spin and leave their own mark on the source material, especially for long-adapted works, even if the exact choices don’t necessarily click with me or my take on the novel.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2024-04-25T05:20:46Z
[7.1/10] Maybe it was a mistake to watch this adaptation so soon after reading the novel. The best parts of the book are things that are difficult to replicate on film: Thomas Hardy’s wonderful prose, and the depth of feeling that comes from being inside his characters’ heads, showing the layers of complexity within their thoughts and hopes, Tess especially. Film and television have their own advantages, the visuals and body language being chief among them, but they leave so much out of what makes a novel like Tess so singular.
I can't help but feel like so much in this first episode of the miniseries is softer and broader.
Softer because Alec seems much more pleasant, much less predatory, much more dashing in his interactions with Tess before he assaults her than in the book. Alec gets more focus writ large than Hardy gave him. That's a choice I can respect.
There have been plenty of adaptations of Tess over the years. The central question of doing a new one ought to be “What new take or angle can we bring to this material?” Exploring more of Alec’s backstory, his relationship with his mother, his interest in Tess from his perspective, is something different. It makes him more of a full-fledged character rather than an antagonist composed of a bundle of simple, if unctuous, impulses. That's unique, and I can appreciate the creative team taking a swing.
But I won’t lie, it makes me a bit uncomfortable how they portray Alec here. The producers already stack the deck a little by casting Hans Matheson, who cuts the figure of a hunk from a CW teen drama more than he does the rougher, more imposing persona from the book. Television has coasted for years on putting attractive people in the same frame and letting sparks fly. And with Matheson’s softer, more earnest portrayal, matched with the added exploration this adaptation gives him, it’s hard not to blanch a little at the miniseries seemingly cushioning a rapist, if not outright excusing him.
Part of the problem for me is in how they play Tess in response to all this. To me, she seems more charmed by Alec than affronted or disturbed by him before the assault. Sure, there’s her awkward kiss in the horse cart. But I don’t know, there’s a lot more long looks where both sides seem to make goo goo eyes at one another (including in the opening seen with Angel) than there are in the novel.This Tess is a bit flustered by Alec, certainly, but doesn’t seem as uncomfortable by his affections as her literary equivalent did.
Some of the problem is in how Gemma Arterton plays Tess for most of this first episode. When I say broader, that includes how her interpretation of the character feels even more naive and strangely affected than even the book lays out. She’s a twenty-two-year-old actress playing a sixteen-year-old character, and as a result, she has this Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man problem where her mannerisms and tics meant to create the effect of immaturity and youth come off as weird, artificial put-ons. This Tess feels huffy, even bratty, like an easily-upset ten-year-old more than the provincial but hard-lived young woman from the novel.
That's not the only thing made broader. Her parents feel more like cartoon characters, or even a mom and dad from a goofy sitcom, than they do real-if-flawed individuals. The other maids at the d’Urberville manor (composite characters from the book) are exaggerated mean girls. Even the moment where she gets into a fight before Alec “rescues” her, which is an incident of supreme desperation in the source material, feels like a weightless scuffle here.
That said, the rape, which Hardy elides in the novel, is depicted with the right blend of tastefulness and terror here. It isn’t lurid by any means (unlike the infamous strawberry scene), but it is appropriately impressionistic and horrifying in conveying what shocking abuses are inflicted on Tess in the process.
And suddenly, the adaptation makes a turn for the better. I want to give the miniseries the most charitable read possible. It’s possible we get a softer and broader take on the story at first to mark a contrast with how much harsher and realer things get from there.
I don’t love the softening of Alec, but there is a, if you’ll pardon my being a philistine, Buffy-esque quality to having a more charming, if liberty-taking suitor, who then turns out to be a monster. The miniseries doesn’t lean into the sense of predation as much as I might like, but maybe that makes his sexual assault that much more shocking, putting us in the shoes of Tess and not seeing it coming, rather than the tense dramatic irony in the novel where the reader can sense the danger even more than Tess can.
Likewise, I was ready to write off Arterton as a bad performer in the role, but what she does after Tess’ assault is stunning. The non-verbal acting in Tess’ shock and bewilderment after the event is outstanding. Her recriminations to Alec when he tries to make amends afterward come with the appropriate amount of fire and scorn. And her scene with her mother, where she laments that she wasn’t prepared to defend against such things by someone who should have known better and looked out for her, comes with the right blend of legitimate anger and pathos.
So I’m apt to chalk up Arterton’s unavailing childlike performance in the first part of the miniseries as a deliberate choice -- there to mark the contrast between the wide-eyed innocent girl who doesn’t suspect Alec’s lustful intentions, to the traumatized and disillusioned young woman who emerges in the wake of such abuse. I can't pretend to like the early part of the performance, but the later part is quite good, and I can appreciate the choice to let the tone of the performance signal the change in Tess’ disposition.
Overall, this is still a take on the material that I can appreciate intellectually more than I outright like it. But I also admire adaptations that take pains to put their own spin and leave their own mark on the source material, especially for long-adapted works, even if the exact choices don’t necessarily click with me or my take on the novel.