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Critical reception was mixed at the time
Oct. 5th, 2008 11:37 pmSupposedly because it challenged the sexual mores of Hardy's day, but in my opinion more likely because it was a bit shite.
I escaped Hardy at school by virtue of being in the second stream for English and thus not bright enough. (I went on to answer questions on "To Kill a Mockingbird" without ever having been taught it because I hated "Romeo and Juliet" so much - my grade is left as an exercise to the reader.) Never have I felt so relieved to be intellectually underestimated. I thought however that possibly it might be palatable in televisual form. Having already seen Jude the Obscure some years back, I feel that I ought to have known better.
What a pisspoor, unloveable excuse for a story that was. In any other drama, the evil overbearing foreman would've been away with the blue ribbon for Biggest Dick, but here there was such strong competition from the two leading men that he really wasn't even in the running. Mary Sue d'Urberville herself ("You may have won the heart of the man we all long for with your astonishing good looks, and also being smart, and good, and also the best milkmaid on the farm, but we're just so happy that you got him anyway") can at least be said to be on average slightly spunky, but the problem with averages is that taken in isolation, they tell you nothing. Three hours 59 minutes of being a total drip are not compensated for by one moment of passionate excess.
There is not a single likeable character in this piece of soul-grinding televisual torture. The whole thing is an exercise in grim futility. On paper, it may have even been a well written exercise in grim futility, although somehow I doubt that would make up for it. On screen, it just left me wanting that 4 hours of my life back, thank you so much.
I escaped Hardy at school by virtue of being in the second stream for English and thus not bright enough. (I went on to answer questions on "To Kill a Mockingbird" without ever having been taught it because I hated "Romeo and Juliet" so much - my grade is left as an exercise to the reader.) Never have I felt so relieved to be intellectually underestimated. I thought however that possibly it might be palatable in televisual form. Having already seen Jude the Obscure some years back, I feel that I ought to have known better.
What a pisspoor, unloveable excuse for a story that was. In any other drama, the evil overbearing foreman would've been away with the blue ribbon for Biggest Dick, but here there was such strong competition from the two leading men that he really wasn't even in the running. Mary Sue d'Urberville herself ("You may have won the heart of the man we all long for with your astonishing good looks, and also being smart, and good, and also the best milkmaid on the farm, but we're just so happy that you got him anyway") can at least be said to be on average slightly spunky, but the problem with averages is that taken in isolation, they tell you nothing. Three hours 59 minutes of being a total drip are not compensated for by one moment of passionate excess.
There is not a single likeable character in this piece of soul-grinding televisual torture. The whole thing is an exercise in grim futility. On paper, it may have even been a well written exercise in grim futility, although somehow I doubt that would make up for it. On screen, it just left me wanting that 4 hours of my life back, thank you so much.
