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Absolutely the worst movie.

Absolutely Fantastic

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Left me detached compared to '67 Christie/Stamp/Finch/Bates film. I gave that 8 stars. A scene that seemed to capture the times so beautifully in that version was the meal Bethsheba shares with her workers. There, she sat inside while her staff sat outside like they were at a picnic! In this version it all takes place very quietly in the dark with little obvious joy. Anyhow, worth seeing but watch the Schlesinger film for a better adaptation.

What an absolute waste of potential. The cinematography ... enchanting. The acting ... captivating. The writing ... incoherent and illogical. So much so that I couldn't help but wonder how this got through preliminary editing stages.Unlike most complaints of illogicality, this has nothing to do with suspense of disbelief. It has more to do with the overwhelming question riding in my mind throughout this film. "Why"?Bathseda goes from a strong and enforced independence to abject stupidity in moment. Really. After having rejected 2 men, within 10 minutes of the nearly 2 hours of this film, she falls for and marries a man she met in the middle of the night while walking back home, and who just so happens to be a selfish drunk. Why?Perhaps you could just explain away her stupidity with love, but the film takes no time with it. Any emotion is thrust upon the viewer without even the simplest of justification. At best, weak explanations are added in afterwards to quell these questions (she married him was jealous and required a distraction; if you say so). Then within minutes the next man falls in love with her (all the men in this movie just fall in love and propose, there's no time for any justification behind this love that would actually make this movie interesting) and then shoots the husband who by the way was thought to have drowned. Who needs any sort of background behind any emotion when they can just throw love at the screen. Who needs any motivation? We have time constraints people.Moreover, the primary character, Bathseda, is so utterly unlikable that at best you can feel abject apathy. She fires a man who she is indebted to after he dared point out her capriciousness (after, notably, she asked for his opinion). This is until she needs him the next day when her livestock fails. Perhaps some found this stubbornness and pride endearing. I didn't. By the end of the film, my only investment was hoping she did not get her happy ending after so callously and irresponsibly using the people around her.The film only gets 3/10 stars because of the cinematography, which I can't stress enough, is so utterly amazing. Additionally, the acting was rather well done, with Carey Mulligan being a notable standout. It's a shame such cinematographic and acting skill was wasted on an atrocious plot.

Having now seen this twice,I feel this adaptation could have been so much more. Let's start with the good points; cinematography is beautiful, the countryside has never looked more stunning, makes me want to visit it more often. The actors are on form - Sheen really delivers,the part of Liddy is also worth noting. The music is also good and doesn't impose.Now the bad, it felt as if the director picked the main bits of the book that he remembered from class and packed them into the film. The atmosphere and build up is definitely missing. I think half an hour more could have added more and given it the payoff that it deserved. In short it ended up being a late Sunday evening affair that should be on a TV screen rather than cinema.

I watched this adaptation of Hardy's novel for the first time this evening, hoping it would at least have some of the spark of the original 1967 version. It does not. Carey Mulligan was cool, distant and just not convincing, whereas Julie Christie was sexy and emotional as well as being a hard-headed business woman. The male leads in this new version were equally like cardboard cut outs, although Gabriel Oak did have something of the original Gabriel about him. The memorable scenes from the original version just were not there, for example the meeting of Troy and Bathsheba at Maiden Castle, the actual Iron Age hill fort, was played out in a wood.....and was not at all sexy. The lesser characters also did not come over as country farm workers....the scenes where they sang and got drunk just were not good enough. If you want to get the closest feel to what Thomas Hardy was writing about, stick to the 1967 version and read the novel too.