Jude [Region 2]

United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), English ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Remastered, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: In 19th century Britain, a unconventional young man struggles against the limitations of a rigid, restrictive society. Based on Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, this somber period drama stars a suitably intense Christopher Eccleston as Jude, a young man with dreams of
SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Camerimage Awards, ...Jude

British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom didn't make a particularly good film until Welcome to Sarajevo, and this curiously dry adaptation of Thomas Hardy's last novel is a good example. Christopher Eccleston plays Jude Fawley, a self-educated stonemason who dreams of attending university but identifies with the working class. Kate Winslet is his cousin Sue Bridehead, a young woman with suffragette leanings and a position as a teacher's assistant. When the two enter into an illicit union, they are condemned to the margins of society, ultimately resulting in a horrifying tragedy. Winterbottom takes an oddly lean approach to Hardy's deterministic story, which leaves a viewer feeling short on emotion just when one needs it for the from-bad-to-worse third act. Welcome to Sarajevo proved that Winterbottom needs a whole other level of personal involvement to make a film that inspires him. Jude isn't one of those lucky films. --Tom Keogh