Far from the Madding Crowd

This has always been one of my favourite books & films and I was keen to see what they did with this a second time around. But what I want to say after seeing it was 1/see the first film 2/read the book. One of the most essential points to film was left out altogether in that when Bathsheba sent her 'joke' valentine to Boldwood she wrote the words 'Marry Me' on it. It wasn't the roses-are-red etc that got Boldwood in a twist it was the two words she wrote on the card. We get no sense of the quandary and deliberating over this that went on within Boldwood for some time before he made his move (and his ultimate obsession) in this film as we do in the first.

I think the scene when Fanny got the wrong church was disappointing as well. There was no sense of the mad dash she had across town to find the right church and only to find Frank striding out full of indignation at being stood up and telling her "It's too late!" The beautiful words of Gabriel to Bathsheba "when I look up there ye will be and when you look up there I will be" just don't feature at all.

The "shooting at the end was tame to say the least & Martin Sheen was much less forceful in his insistence of marrying Bathsheba But I did like Carey Mulligan as Bathdheba. What was missing was the energy & drama the original film had and dare I say it some Wessex accents....