Far From The Madding Crowd is a film which is directed by Thomas Vinterberg who some may know as the director of the 2012 film, The Hunt. Far From The Madding Crowd stars Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Tom Sturridge and Michael Sheen. It’s a love story film based on the 1874 novel of the same name, written by Thomas Hardy.
Far From The Madding Crowd Trailer
Far From The Madding Crowd Review
Far From The Madding Crowd isn’t usually a film I go to see at the cinema or even one that I choose to rent when it comes out on home release, but I am really glad I went in to see this. I’m not so familiar with films of this genre, as I’m not usually drawn into seeing this type of romance film. But I would have to say that this one certainly was interesting.
Characterisation is Far From The Madding Crowd’s strongest draw card. Each character seems to have an incredibly intense background and personality surrounding who they are, both as people and characters in the film. After leaving the cinema on the day I saw this, I spent much of my train ride home thinking about the characters and why they were the way they were shown. It’s a film that is fairly deep and with a lot of meaning within it, if you were to get down to it, you could probably analyse all the characters for hours. Of particular interest if you have seen the film, is this conversation with one of the stars, Michael Sheen, who chatted briefly about his character, William Boldwood.
What the film is essentially about, is that Bathsheba who is played by Carey Mulligan, must choose who she will marry. She has three suitors at the moment, William (Michael Sheen), Sergeant Francis Troy (Tom Sturridge) and Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts). All three of these men have different social status’ and different levels of wealth and security they can offer Bathsheba. But the problem is that our main character Bathsheba is a completely independent woman, she has her own wealth and a high level of social status. She doesn’t really need one of these guys at all, but we watch her pick one out.
The only problem that I had with the storyline is that it is incredibly obvious who the best suitor is all the way throughout the film and it’s easy to tell which one is the worst. We watch our main character make the worst decisions at times and it’s kind of silly really. But, in the end it’s the strong characterisation that really drives this film forward. As well as some great acting from all of the lead actors.
Being based on a novel, which isn’t particularly short, means that there are quite a lot of details that people may miss out on from the book. I have not personally read this novel at all, but there are some minor characters in the film that seem like they had a larger backstory than what we saw on screen. After seeing this film, I have become interested in reading the novel sometime soon to see what’s different. But for now I can’t really judge between the two.
In terms of the directing and pacing for Far From The Madding Crowd from Thomas Vinterberg, it’s quite good. I did mention earlier that I tend to avoid this genre of films, because they are usually really slow, love story based and not really what I am interested in seeing. While Far From The Madding Crowd may seem a bit slow at times, particularly in the beginning, it’s well worth it in the end. Pacing is fairly consistent and there are some really great moments to see, such as the duet sung by Michael Sheen and Carey Mulligan which was wonderful.
The costume design was well done, usually film’s set in this period have a lot of outfits that are very grey and brown, but in Thomas Vinterberg’s Far From The Madding Crowd, everything is full of colour. The music is quite subtle though, but the piano piece and the duet were both great!
Overall Far From The Madding Crowd was a surprisingly well put together film that is well worth seeing if you like films of this genre. It’s even worth seeing if you don’t like the genre at all because it’s very well made and has many great moments, excellent acting and very strong characters. You could spend ages chatting about this film with a friend after watching it and that’s always a good to be able to do.
