Far From the Madding Crowd

Long before Katniss Everdeen came along to super-charge girl-powered movies and fret over multiple love interests, another independent woman with a similar surname and plenty of male admirers ruled the pages of a Thomas Hardy novel. Her name was Bathsheba Everdene. Julie Christie played her in John Schlesinger's 1967 film adaptation of "Far From the Madding Crowd," opposite Alan Bates, Peter Finch, and Terence Stamp. (In between times there was a 1998 version directed by Nicholas Renton. It's probably about as forgotten as the 1915 Laurence Trimble version.)

What a difference 48 years makes. Bathsheba is now played by Carey Mulligan, in this year's Thomas Vinterberg version, which is written for the screen by David Nicholls. The 2015 take plays up both Bathsheba's independence and her romantic hesitation; she knows at once that she likes Gabriel Oak, the sheep farmer played by Matthias Schoenaerts, but there's something almost perverse in the way she denies herself his company.

Not for long, however. When two twists of fate put them both together on the same farm -- a spread Bathsheba's inherited from her uncle -- with Gabriel now in her employ, Bathsheba is able to enjoy intermittent proximity to him even as she recklessly leads on a prosperous neighboring farmer, Mr. Boldwood (Michael Sheen) and allows herself to be seduced by a man in uniform, a wastrel named Sergeant Troy (Tom Sturridge).

It's a classic adapted for the "Felicity" generation, but -- almost despite itself -- a classic it remains, thanks in large part to the talents of the cast. Mulligan makes for the most exciting onscreen pairing with Schoenaerts since the hunky Belgian actor starred alongside Marion Cotillard in "Rust and Bone," and if anything the sparks that fly here are even hotter than those that showered through that Jacques Audiard-directed film from 2012. It's a slicked-up and streamlined adaptation that teases and tantalizes the viewer in the shameless fashion of a guilty pleasure.

The Blu-ray release offers a whole raft of extras, including deleted scenes, featurettes profiling the setting, characters, setting, and director, and a gallery. This is a juicily executed, passionate film that may have an overtly commercial feel, but it beats the heck out of waterlogged costume snoozers like "Madame Bovary."

"Far from the Madding Crowd"
Blu-ray
$25.99
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