I recently watched the 2011 version of Jane Eyre, starring Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), Michael Fassbender (Inglorious Basterds), and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot). It was excellent. Mia Wasikowska brought the same sense of presence and understated passion (if that makes any sense at all) as she did to her phenomenal performance of Alice in Alice in Wonderland. And Michael Fassbender was FANTASTIC as Rochester: volatile, passionate, tortured, soulful.

The screenplay adaptation was well done. I brought out my highly scribbled-upon copy of the book and, as I flipped through, was impressed with how much of the dialogue and narrative description were carried out verbatim on the screen. There were a few choices that I thought could have been made a little differently to portray Rochester in a slightly more balanced light--there are a few scenes where he is absolutely irredeemable and every time Jane (and I) fell in love with him in subsequent scenes, I found myself thinking back and wondering how we could fall for someone who could be such an asshole at times (pardon my candor).

Also? The score, by Dario Marianelli, is divine. I've been listening to it both at work and at home. It features British violin virtuoso Jack Liebeck, whose solos haunt my mind hours after I turn off my iPod. The Jane Eyre score just might be the theme music to my new book. :D

I would definitely recommend the movie to any fans of the novel.