Jane Eyre (2011) NYT Critics' Pick

[lsanderson]

Mia Wasikowska in “Jane Eyre.” More Photos »
Radiant Spirit Blossoms in Barren Land
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: March 10, 2011

Jane Eyre may lack fortune and good looks — she is famously “small and plain” as well as “poor and obscure” — but as the heroine of a novel, she has everything. From the very first pages of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 book, Jane embodies virtues that might be off-putting if they were not so persuasive, and if her story were not such a marvelous welter of grim suffering and smoldering passion. She is brave, humble, spirited and honest, the kind of person readers fall in love with and believe themselves to be in their innermost hearts, where literary sympathy lies. More