FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD *

Danish director Thomas Vinterberg brings nothing new to his adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd", even going so far as to trim the novel into a bite-sized two hours. Whatever Schlesinger's longer version lacked it now feels like a masterpiece in comparison. Of course, it's not an easy book to bring to the screen, the main problem lying in the casting. Bathsheba Everdene is an almost impossible character to get 'right'. On the one hand she is forward-thinking and independent, a heroine ahead of her time, while on the other, she allows herself to be romantically manipulated and is very much the agent of her own misfortunes. Julie Christie got the independent free spirit bit off to a tee and almost carried off the love lorn element but Carey Mulligan is simply miscast; she's much too 21st century to be convincing and in this shortened version she vacillates way too much. I was never convinced by her behaviour any more than I could understand Matthias Schoenaerts' puppy-dog devotion to this fickle woman.

Schoenaerts doesn't go for getting the accent right and plays the role as a dreamily attractive hunk who never takes his shirt off or says very much. Slightly more successful are Tom Sturridge's Sergeant Troy, though he lacks the brooding sexuality Terence Stamp brought to the role and Michael Sheen is quite affecting as Boldwood, even if, again, he is no Peter Finch. Indeed this version is so sanitised and so cosily romantic it could have been made in the 1940's. It isn't bad, exactly but it feels very much like something the BBC might have produced on television.