Jane Eyre

Directed by Cary Fukunaga. Starring Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Amelia Clarkson, Sally Hawkins, Freya Parks, Imogen Poots, Judi Dench 12A cert, gen release, 120 min

CERTAIN NOVELS have become so entrenched in the collective psyche that they have taken on the quality of myth. You don't need to have read Wuthering Heights, Don Quixoteor, yes, Jane Eyreto have a sure grasp of their stories.

As a result, film-makers tackling such beasts face assault from two opposing flanks. On the one hand, any derivation from the campfire legend will invite cries of sacrilege. On the other, too slavish an approach will cause many to wonder why the exercise was worth bothering with. Shouldn’t Jane be reimagined as a man? What about making Mr Rochester an alien? Surprise us, man.

High priests of the Brontë Sect will find a few tinkerings in Cary Fukunaga's impressive take on Jane Eyre. But, for the most part, working from an economic script by Moira Buffini, he stays fairly close to the well-remembered story.

Despite a sour scowl and a tight bun, Mia Wasikowska is still a fair bit prettier than Brontë’s “plain” heroine. (Then again, Joan Fontaine was no ogre in the most famous version.) Despite being held aloft by a waft of charisma, Michael Fassbender is a little less imposing than most versions of Mr Rochester. (Mind you, Orson Welles rather overdid the godlike awe when towering over Fontaine.) There’s just enough tweaking to make the project worthwhile, but not so much as to alienate purists.

In a possible allusion to the opening of David Lean's Oliver Twist,we begin with Jane stomping across a windy moor – already fleeing Mr Rochester's Gothic pile – towards a deserted cottage inhabited by clergyman St John Rivers (Jamie Bell) and his two dutiful sisters. The story then unfolds in a series of neatly dovetailed flashbacks.

Jane’s early childhood is marred by the unmediated hatred of the aunt (a usefully grating Sally Hawkins) into whose charge she has been placed. Adolescence is made hell at one of those archetypically ghastly Victorian schools that cause one to wonder how any child of the age made it to adulthood without suffering a nervous breakdown.

Later, she finds herself employed as a governess at an imposing mansion on an alien plain. The eventual appearance of Mr Rochester – a moment of almost comic melodrama in most film versions – is toned down just a tiny bit. His horse rears, but the earth refuses to tremble and the heavens don’t quite roar. Still, granted Fassbender’s sombre face and Celtic vowels, the newest incarnation of Jane’s troubled boss still causes the knees to quiver.

There has always been a thematic conflict at the heart of Jane Eyre: the story revels in Transylvanian nightmares while celebrating the heroine's quiet purity and nascent, delicately expressed proto-feminism. Director of the fine Sin Nombre,Fukunaga inclines the film towards gentle realism. Natural light illuminates dust particles.

Fine supporting performances from Judi Dench (as Mrs Fairfax) and young Freya Parks (as the brave, wretched Helen Burns) never tarry with caricature. Fassbender’s Mr Rochester simmers more often than he bellows.

Such an approach helps make Jane easier to identify with. Played solidly – if not transcendently – by Wasikowska, Jane emerges as a frustrated soul bursting to assert herself. Dialled down a few notches on the intensity register, the central semi-love affair seems more comprehensible than is usually the case.

And yet. Something has also been lost. One yearns for a little bit more sturm und drang(quite literally) from the film. The most famous, most melodramatic scene in the story – do we really need to be this coy? – has rarely passed in such perfunctory fashion.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you need to get out of the attic more often.