Hallmark Hall of Fame: The Return of the Native
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Movie Reviews of Hallmark Hall of Fame: The Return of the Native
Movie Review: True Love?
Summary: 4 Stars
What is true love based on .. a dream of something better or a matter of the heart? ... and what would you choose? Good movie to make you realize the choices that we make will make or break our lives.Movie Review: great for catherine fans
Summary: 4 Stars
i only liked this movie because of zeta-she is great in it and young-24 yrs oldMovie Review: so-so
Summary: 3 Stars
There is such rich material in Hardy that it's hard to go too wrong, and this version is passable enough. Some notes:
1. Everyone's complaining about the cinematography. The problem is simple: the thing was shot on a video camera, and evidently not a very good one. Presumably this series was meant for British television only. In any event, it's hard to get past this, even well into the film.
2. Catherine Zeta-Jones has long had a reputation as an actress with a haughty and unpleasant personality, and I daresay you can get a whiff of that here.
3. The movie is only about an hour and 45 minutes, so while it follows the novel closely, it only follows the major lines. For example, in the book, the part where Clem decides to be furze-cutter seems to go on and on, but in the movie, it's like he's in his back lawn doing some yard work for only a day.
4. No subtitles! Grrrrr!
Movie Review: Stick to the book
Summary: 1 Stars
A script that even an all-star cast couldn't salvage...
Thomas Hardy being a favorite author, I believe that this masterpiece of a classic deserved so much better than this poorly-acted and presented piece that resembled nothing more than a day-time soap opera.
Nothing more than eye candy (the beautiful landscape coupled with Clive Owen and Catherine Zeta-Zones as a striking pair), the adaptation was mediocre at best, and quite honestly painful to watch in some scenes. Any hope of improvement as the film continued was abandoned as the final credits rolled.
Do yourself a favor and give "Return of the Native" a miss. Better yet, check out more faithful and worthy Hardy adaptations by the peerless BBC, such as "Tess of the d'Urbervilles", "The Mayor of Casterbridge", and "Far From the Madding Crowd" (a particular favorite) - all amazing films that I can say enough about.
Movie Review: A Very, Very Poor Rendition of Hardy's Story
Summary: 1 Stars
The director and script destroy both the insightful plot and character development of Hardy's brilliant novel. Where Hardy describes Wildeve as "one in whom women find nothing of which to object and in whom men find nothing to admire," Clive Owen's intensity and over-acting destroy the character and characteristic aloofness of Hardy's ambivalent and ordinary Wildeve. And compared to Hardy's complex and nuanced Eustacia, the Eustacia of the movie is revoltingly unprincipled and unsympathetic. It is difficult to imagine that Gold has any understanding of Thomas Hardy or the Late Victorians. Gold would have done better to direct a Harlequin Romance. The only things this film has in common with the novel are its title, character names, and location.