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There are two problems with John Schlesinger's "Far From the Madding Crowd," and they flaw what might have been an excellent film. The first is the decision to expand the characters into stereotyped romantic lovers, instead of showing them as complex people trapped in an isolated society. The second is the decision to avoid the real significance of Bathsheba's behavior in order to produce a homogenized, vitamin-enriched product to lure busloads of eighth-grade classes.

Thomas Hardy's novel told of a 19th Century rural England in which class distinctions and unyielding social codes surrounded his characters. They were far from the madding crowd whether they liked it or not, and got tangled in each other's problems because there was nowhere else to turn. It's not simply that Bathsheba ( Julie Christie ) was courted by the three men in her life, but that she was courted by ALL three men in her life.

Schlesinger seems to shy away from this kind of social approach, preferring to supply a picturesque and charming (but aimless) movie about life down on the farm. There are splendid scenes of rural life -- harvesting the grain, herding the sheep, etc. -- but in the end they don't seem to add up to a statement about Bathsheba and her society. It's as if the plot and the setting were pulling in opposite directions.

Alas, when Schlesinger abandons Bathsheba's inner life and constricted universe, he's stuck with a simplistic love story and lots of pretty scenery (both of which, it should be added, will appeal immensely to a great many moviegoers). The spacious landscape of Dorset is photographed in stunning beauty, and we get panoramas of hillsides with heroic characters running up and down them. But when we get to close-ups we find that Hardy's people have been ironed out by a bland and empty "treatment." They are no longer interesting enough to absorb us for three hours.

Still, the leading men are successful. Alan Bates , in a change of pace, is the loyal shepherd. Terence Stamp is a suitably vile Sgt. Troy, and Peter Finch makes Boldwood strong and honorable in his love for Bathsheba. Miss Christie, however, is too sweet and superficial, and so is the film. Teachers who want to expose students to a "classic" while avoiding the issues it raises should assign the movie, not the book.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Far From the Madding Crowd (1968)

Julie Christie as Bathsheba

Terence Stamp as Sgt. Troy

Peter Finch as Boldwood

Alan Bates as Gabriel Oak

Prunella Ransome as Fanny

Fiona Walker as Liddy

• Joseph Janni

Directed by

• John Schlesinger

From a screenplay by

• Frederic Raphael

Photographed by

Based on the novel by.

• Thomas Hardy

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Review: It’s a Madding, Madding World

O n a windy hillside in rural Dorset, Carey Mulligan is in the middle of turning down a marriage proposal when the low drone of a tractor engine interrupts. “Cut,” calls Thomas Vinterberg, the Danish director standing a few yards away with a monitor. Mulligan is perfectly turned out as Bathsheba Everdene, the heroine of Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel Far From the Madding Crowd , and there’s not a sign of the 21st century in the picture. But the production’s microphones are picking up the sound of a local farmer at work. If only he’d been considerate enough to work with a horse and plow.

In this scene, Bathsheba refuses to marry the dependable shepherd Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), the first of three suitors who vie for her hand. (Michael Sheen, as the obsessive farmer William Boldwood, and Tom Sturridge, as the rakish Sergeant Francis Troy, round out the trio.) Like any proper British costume drama–including John Schlesinger’s 1967 big-screen version of Hardy’s tale, which starred Julie Christie as Bathsheba–this adaptation of Madding Crowd, which recently opened in selected cities and is due on more screens in coming weeks, employs the kind of environmental flourishes that would make Downton Abbey fans swoon. Behind Mulligan and Schoenaerts lie rolling hills of unspoiled land; the rustic building in the background was rethatched by order of the filmmakers to better evoke the period. Characters wearing perfectly designed 19th century clothing meet amid lush woods and grandly dilapidated country estates.

It’s pretty much everything that Vinterberg used to hate. Just over 20 years ago, he and fellow Danish director Lars van Trier founded Dogme 95, a movement intended to strip the artifice out of movies. Handheld cameras were a must; special lighting and background music were forbidden. Directors weren’t to be credited, and notably, genre films and period pieces were out. Vinterberg’s acclaimed 1998 film The Celebration, about the dark family secrets revealed at a patriarch’s birthday party, set the precedent.

So why is he working on this tableau of romance, murder and bespoke costuming? “I’m here to make it believable,” says Vinterberg, who looks younger than his 45 years and is rarely without a grin. “To get past the frocks and bonnets and dusty layers of period movies and get into the inner lives of these characters and the inner life of the landscapes.”

Vinterberg is the first to admit that he breaks every one of his old rules in Madding Crowd. Yet Sheen later tells me that the stripped-down influence of Dogme 95 was still palpable on the set. “You can see that what he’s drawn to is what’s going on between the characters,” Sheen says. “Rather than resorting to any kind of clichéd costume-drama surfaces, he wants to get beneath that.”

Mulligan and the director had long conversations about Bathsheba, a flawed, headstrong woman who runs her own farm and observes few social conventions. “The anti-costume-drama heroine,” Mulligan calls her. (The character’s surname has its own contemporary echo as the inspiration for Katniss Everdeen of the Hunger Games books.) “I’m trying to promote her feminism and her practicality,” Mulligan says, “and then Thomas will remind me of her femininity as well, which Hardy also has in her.”

Although much of the plot revolves around Bathsheba’s romantic entanglements–each of her suitors represents a different kind of love: Oak is affection, Boldwood security and Troy passion–the story is “not about a girl who wants to get married,” Mulligan says. “That’s actively what she doesn’t want. Her agenda is about her own life.”

Which is what makes this Far From the Madding Crowd such a modern statement. Bathsheba makes her share of mistakes in love and business, but she winds up earning one of Hardy’s rare happy endings. Don’t let the Victorian setting fool you: this heroine manages to achieve the very contemporary dream of having it all.

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Film Review: ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’

Carey Mulligan makes a fine Bathsheba Everdene in Thomas Vinterberg's solid but unremarkable version of the Thomas Hardy classic.

By Scott Foundas

Scott Foundas

• Film Review: ‘Black Mass’ 9 years ago
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When Thomas Hardy named his fourth novel “Far From the Madding Crowd” in 1874, he almost certainly meant the title ironically — a riposte to the notion that the rural folk of his beloved English countryside somehow led simpler lives, less tempest-tossed by desire, than their urban counterparts. But you could almost mistake Hardy for a literalist on the basis of Thomas Vinterberg ’s calm, stately new film version — the fourth official filming of the novel (which first reached the screen as a 1915 silent), and a perfectly respectable, but never particularly stirring, night at the movies. Probably the Danish Vinterberg’s most accomplished foray into English-language filmmaking (after the gun-control allegory “Dear Wendy” and the futuristic Joaquin Phoenix-Claire Danes romance “It’s All About Love”), this pared-down if generally faithful adaptation benefits from a solid cast and impeccable production values, though the passions that drive Hardy’s characters remain more stated than truly felt. Still, the “Downton Abbey” set will find much to enjoy here, and should generate pleasing returns for this May 1 Fox Searchlight release.

Despite the charges of misogyny that have repeatedly been hurled at him through the retroactive prism of political correctness, Hardy was a writer of many tough-minded, resourceful female characters whose independence of mind and body set them at odds with the patriarchal codes of the Victorian era. Among the most enduring of those heroines is “Madding Crowd’s” Bathsheba Everdene ( Carey Mulligan ), a plucky, willful young woman of no particular means (like her latter-day namesake, Katniss), who nevertheless sees no compelling reason to settle down with a man she doesn’t truly love — even one as modest and sincere in his affections as the farmer Gabriel Oak ( Matthias Schoenaerts ), neighbor to Bathsheba’s aunt among the rolling Dorset hills. Gabriel’s hand, clumsily proffered and instantly rejected, is but the first of three that come Bathsheba’s way over the course of the novel (which, looked at one way, resembles a 19th-century “Dating Game”), as romantic and financial fates rise and fall, and time, as it is wont to do, marches on undeterred.

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If Vinterberg does not immediately spring to mind as a likely Hardy interpreter, it may be because the author’s countryman, Michael Winterbottom, seemed to hold exclusive Hardy mining rights for most of the past two decades, during which he delivered a superior “Jude,” an India-set “Tess” (“Trishna”) and a massively underrated version of “The Mayor of Casterbridge” (transposed to the American West and retitled “The Claim”). But consider Vinterberg’s earlier work — especially his breakthrough “The Celebration” and the recent child-abuse drama “The Hunt” — and you can see that he shares a certain Hardyan understanding of insular communities and the sudden shifts of fate that can turn a patron into a pariah, or vice versa. He’s also found a very fine Bathsheba in Mulligan, who, at 29 (practically over-the-hill by Victorian/Hollywood standards), has added an appealing wistfulness to her fresh-faced-ingenue’s repertoire. Her Bathsheba is a less impetuous, more grounded creature than the one played by a radiant Julie Christie in John Schlesinger’s 1967 film version. When she delivers the character’s famous declaration, “I shall astonish you all,” Mulligan makes it sound like the person she’s most trying to convince is herself.

It is Bathsheba’s sudden ascent (via inheritance) to the land-owning class that ushers Hardy’s story into its second act, and which drives a further wedge between Bathsheba and Gabriel, who, having suffered his own reversal of fortune, finds himself working as a shepherd in her employ. From there, he suffers (mostly) in silence as Bathsheba capriciously flirts with the wealthy bachelor farmer Boldwood ( Michael Sheen ), before finally surrendering to the charms of the young Sgt. Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge), himself on the rebound from the servant girl Fanny Robin ( Juno Temple ), who left him high and dry at the altar when she went to the wrong church by mistake. (Lo, the life-altering crises that have been averted by smartphones.)

Frank is, literally and figuratively, a swordsman of some repute — the basis for one of Hardy’s most famous passages, in which the uniformed soldier parries and thrusts his blade at a quivering Bathsheba, a transparent act of swordplay as foreplay. (“She took up her position as directed,” Hardy writes.) It becomes, in turn, the best scene in Vinterberg’s film, thanks largely to the cockeyed swagger of Sturridge, who has never seemed quite this dangerously alive in a movie. Reckless bravado seeps through Frank’s pores like a fever, and his words tumble forth in a sleepy purr, as if his every utterance were a seduction, or a dare. None of the other characters burn quite so brightly — in particular Gabriel. This may be the first time that the chameleonic, Belgian-born Schoenaerts (who made a big impression as Marion Cotillard’s brooding boxer beau in “Rust and Bone” and again in last year’s “The Drop”) has seemed less than entirely sure of himself onscreen, underplaying so much (and grappling with a come-and-go British accent) that the already recessive Gabriel risks becoming a peripheral character in what is, ostensibly, his own story. (It’s hard not to imagine what Vinterberg’s “The Hunt” star, Mads Mikkelsen, might have done differently with the role.)

Of course, one of the challenges in adapting “Madding Crowd” is that the novel has five main characters united by an omniscient narrator who not only knows the inner workings of their hearts and minds, but editorializes on their behavior as he goes along. Stripped of that device, Vinterberg’s movie (which was scripted by veteran British screenwriter David Nicholls) sometimes seems like a compass unable to find true north. And where Schlesinger’s film seemed to creak under the weight of its own epic portent, the new one lurches from one major event to the next without quite enough down time in-between, a Cliff’s Notes approach that clocks in under two hours (one full hour less than the ’67 version) but compromises the story’s panoramic sweep. It also reduces Fanny (and, with her, Temple’s guileless performance) to glorified cameo status, making it hard to understand why her ultimate fate, when revealed, sends another character into paroxysms of despair.

What does register at every turn is a vibrant sense of time and place that pulls us into Hardy’s bygone world even when the drama falters. Shooting on location in the real Dorset, Vinterberg and regular cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen rely mostly on natural light and spacious widescreen frames to capture the land in all its rugged, forbidding beauty — a look as transporting, in its way, as the fog-shrouded majesty of Polanski’s “Tess.” Kave Quinn’s muddied, weathered sets and Janet Patterson’s costumes add to the sense of a hard-working society where function trumps decorous forms. Composer Craig Armstrong’s richly orchestrated but sparingly used score does its best to articulate the bottled-up emotions the characters themselves can not.

Reviewed at Fox screening room, New York, March 26, 2015. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 118 MIN.

• Production: (U.S.-U.K.) A Fox Searchlight Pictures release and presentation in association with BBC Films and TSG Entertainment of a DNA Films production. Produced by Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich. Executive producer, Christine Langan. Co-producer, Anita Overland.
• Crew: Directed by Thomas Vinterberg. Screenplay, David Nicholls, based on the novel by Thomas Hardy. Camera (Technicolor prints, widescreen), Charlotte Bruus Christensen; editor, Claire Simpson; music, Craig Armstrong; production designer, Kave Quinn; costume designer, Janet Patterson; sound (Dolby Digital), Mitch Low; sound designer, Glenn Freemantle; associate producer, Joanne Smith; casting, Nina Gold, Theo Park.
• With: Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge, Juno Temple, Jessica Barden.

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Movie Reviews

'far from the madding crowd': counterprogramming writ victorian.

Bob Mondello

Far From the Madding Crowd features feisty heroines, sturdy heroes, and three — yes, three --€” men vying for the heroine's affection. Alex Bailey/Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures hide caption

Far From the Madding Crowd features feisty heroines, sturdy heroes, and three — yes, three --€” men vying for the heroine's affection.

Genre flicks on steroids — that's the general rule for this time of year, whether we're talking superheroes, supercharged cars, or romance — and in that context, the lush, overstuffed costume epic, Far From the Madding Crowd is a perfect fit.

It's romance — and in an Avengers-dominated week, also counterprogramming — writ Victorian: a feisty heroine in crinoline, romanced by sturdy heroes who are handsome, reliable, smoldering men of few words. So few, in the case of shepherd Gabriel Oaks (Matthias Schoenaerts), that he's said a total of maybe 10 syllables to pretty, spunky Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) before surprising her one afternoon at her cottage door with a baby lamb and a proposal of marriage.

"I've never asked anyone before," he stammers embarrassedly when she doesn't immediately say yes.

"No," she smiles, "I should hope not."

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Carey mulligan returns to period drama for a thomas hardy classic.

Now, there's a subtext to this encounter. He's got a herd of sheep and what he figures are pretty good prospects. She's living off the kindness of relatives and has an education, which, for a woman in Victorian England, counts for not much. By that era's lights, he's kind of doing her a favor, with this marriage proposal, clumsy though he is. Still she turns him down, which looks like a smart move a few days later when their fortunes reverse — he watching helplessly as his sheepdog herds his entire flock over a cliff; she inheriting an estate from a wealthy uncle.

In no time, there's another guy — a wealthy land-owner (Michael Sheen) — making goo-goo eyes. And where in most romances, two handsome, sturdy men-of-few-words would suffice, this one has a third — a callow young soldier (Tom Sturridge) who speaks with his, um, sword, let's say (and yes, novelist Thomas Hardy intended that double-entendre).

I confess I wondered why anyone would want to remake Far From the Madding Crowd until I went back and watched some of John Schlesinger's 1967 version. Long, lavish and, Julie Christie notwithstanding, pretty dull, it doesn't stint on landscape, but isn't terribly compelling. Christie was a lovely flirt, but that's kind of all that the pre-women's lib version asked her to be.

This time, Carey Mulligan plays Miss Everdene, and like Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games heroine who would become her namesake a century or so later, she's made of sterner stuff, whether wading into a sheep-bath on a dare, or meeting the skeptical staff of her inherited estate.

"It is my intention to astonish you all," she tells them. And astonish she does, at least judging from the looks she gets from the men in her orbit.

Director Thomas Vinterberg has shaken off all vestiges of the pared-down minimalism that guided him when he made his Dogme classic, The Celebration . Here he's all about lush music, gorgeous landscapes, and romantic action in a story he and his screenwriter have tightened and intensified.

This Far From the Madding Crowd is almost an hour shorter than the '60s one, which means the madding now comes so close on the heels of the gladding and the sadding, that it isn't until the very end, that you realize you've been artfully shepherded — stampeded, really — right off an emotional cliff.

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• DVD & Streaming

Far From the Madding Crowd

• Drama , Romance

Content Caution

In Theaters

• May 1, 2015
• Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba Everdene; Matthias Schoenaerts as Gabriel Oak; Michael Sheen as William Boldwood; Tom Sturridge as Sgt. Francis Troy; Juno Temple as Fanny Robbin; Jessica Barden as Liddy

Home Release Date

• August 4, 2015
• Thomas Vinterberg

Distributor

• Fox Searchlight

Movie Review

Bathsheba Everdene is a rarity in late 19th-century England: a woman with options.

The fiery, independent young lady has been on her own most of her life, what with her parents dying when she was young and all. And that independence isn’t something she intends to squander. Especially when it comes to … marriage.

Bathsheba’s irrepressible, stereotype-shattering persona only makes her more attractive to the three very different men who pursue her in Far From the Madding Crowd , the latest cinematic adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s breakthrough 1874 novel.

She meets the stouthearted Gabriel Oak, a faithful sheepherder, first. He wastes no time proposing, telling her his modest 100-acre farm and 200 sheep could provide whatever similarly modest desires he thinks Bathsheba’s heart might harbor: a piano, flowers, dresses … the stuff most normal women of the time presumably longed for, judging by the way Mr. Oak makes his pitch.

But Bathsheba Everdene is no normal woman.

“I don’t want a husband,” she says bluntly. “I should hate to be someone’s property.” Then she adds, “I’m too independent for you. … You’d come to despise me.”

“I would not,” Gabriel counters. “Ever.”

But it’s absolutely no use trying to bend Miss Everdene’s will. And so Mr. Oak dutifully, if sadly, accepts Bathsheba’s hasty response.

Of course the two aren’t done with each other yet.

Circumstances soon leave Mr. Oak bankrupt and penniless, while Miss Everdene becomes an heiress when an uncle bequeaths his considerable estate (including a farm) to her. It’s no surprise, then, that the now-homeless Gabriel ends up in charge of Bathsheba’s new agricultural endeavors, stoically stuffing down his romantic emotions.

And that’s when we get to the part about Bathsheba’s other two suitors: the older but noble neighbor Mr. William Boldwood and the much younger, decidedly less noble Sgt. Francis Troy.

Two worthy sorts and one scoundrel. Guess which one our fiercely independent young Brit picks?

Positive Elements

Strong and charming, Miss Everdene is certainly full of spunk and pluck. She courageously wades into the details of managing her estate, both the financial aspects as well as the day-to-day activities related to farming, steadfastly earning the respect and admiration of those who doubted a woman could do either of those things well.

When she ultimately makes a wrong choice while sorting out her suitors, it doesn’t take long for her to recognize the error of her ways, and she eventually says of her unwise decision, “I used to have contempt for girls dazzled by a man in a scarlet uniform,” confessing that she became one of their number. And then, as hard as it is, she resolves to respectably and morally ride out the disastrous union.

Gabriel Oak and William Boldwood, meanwhile, are observably men of character and conviction. Oak warns Bathsheba about Sgt. Troy, saying he’s a man “with no conscience at all,” and counseling her to “stay clear” and not listen to him or believe his lies. (Oak’s right.) Ever mindful of his tongue, though, Mr. Oak doesn’t voluntarily bring up the subject of his affection for Bathsheba after she rejects him. And he volunteers to help minimize the ruinous influence Troy will surely have on her estate. Indeed, more than once, he risks life and limb to preserve Bathsheba’s good name and/or fortune.

Mr. Boldwood is not altogether different from Mr. Oak. He’s older, and there are rumors that a love affair ended badly for him many years before. Still, he promises sincerely to take care of Miss Everdene, both physically and emotionally.

Spiritual Elements

Several scenes occur in a rural church. We hear a snippet of the Christmas carol “O come, O come, Emmanuel.” A portion of a tapestry hanging in Bathsheba’s dining room reads, “God Bless Them.”

Sexual Content

A rendezvous in the forest finds Everdene and Troy kissing passionately, with him grabbing at her crotch (outside her dress). After their wedding, the couple’s shown in bed (he’s bare-chested, she’s wearing undergarments) as they consummate their relationship in a brief, shadowy sex scene that’s more mentally evocative than it is explicit. (A tight shot of their shoulders and heads shows them kissing and clutching.)

We learn that Troy impregnated his former fiancée. Another couple kisses passionately. A pile of clothes on the beach tells us that a man swimming in the ocean (seen from a distance) is naked. To say goodbye, a man tenderly kisses the lips of a dead woman whom he once loved deeply.

Violent Content

In what seems like a misguided attempt to somehow prove his manhood to Bathsheba, Troy orders her to stand still as he performs a slashing sword routine perilously close to her face. (He purposely cuts off a piece of her hair.) Elsewhere, he handles her roughly, repeatedly grabbing her wrists and pulling at her.

A man is shot and killed (resulting in prison time for the shooter). Someone tries to commit suicide by swimming out into the open ocean. We see a deceased woman and her child in a casket. Mr. Oak climbs atop a burning barn, risking his life to put out the fire.

A sheepdog chases a herd off a cliff. We see the bloody impact of two sheep crashing down on the rocks below, as well as the scattered corpses of the other animals. Mr. Oak pierces a sheep’s bloated stomach with a sharp instrument to save its life.

Crude or Profane Language

The Lord’s name is hastily exclaimed twice.

Drug and Alcohol Content

People drink ale and wine throughout. Francis and Bathsheba’s raucous wedding reception includes much imbibing and inebriation, and it becomes increasingly clear that the soldier’s long list of character faults includes drunkenness.

Other Negative Elements

Sgt. Troy is dissolute in just about every way imaginable. Beyond all the drinking, he refuses to work on the farm, chasing animals like a deranged child instead. He squanders much of Bathsheba’s fortune on gambling. And his seductive wooing of Bathsheba quickly turns cruel and emotionally abusive once the couple is married.

Far From the Madding Crowd checks most of the requisite British period piece boxes. Conflicted, spunky, boundary-breaking heroine? Check. Young and smoldering noble suitor with no reasonable chance of winning her heart? Check. Older worthy suitor, also with no reasonable chance of winning her heart? Check. Dastardly, duplicitous cad whom we all know will end up winning her heart … at least temporarily? Check.

Unlike most period pieces, however, Bathsheba Everdene—and, yes, her surname was the inspiration for another, more contemporary Everdeen named Katniss—is largely unconstrained by societal expectations. She exults in her independence, propelled by her headstrong willingness to do whatever she wants without much thought to the consequences. After all, what good is independence, she essentially says, if you “throw it away” at the first possibility of marriage?

That attitude, however, eventually leads to her disastrous, ill-considered capitulation to Sgt. Troy’s scheming seductions—a choice that obliterates her happiness and, ironically, her independence as well. That, of course, throws the goodness of the two suitors she’s rejected into much sharper relief. And in this respect, Far From the Madding Crowd offers a cautionary tale about the perils of falling for flash over bedrock relational qualities like loyalty, faithfulness and sacrificial commitment.

I’m not sure it’s truly a spoiler to tell you that in this 140-year-old tale it’s romantically satisfying when Bathsheba and her steadfast Mr. Oak finally end up together (after her horrible hubby’s untimely demise). On another level, though, I couldn’t help but feel that Bathsheba’s purported independence also serves as a cloak for her own manipulation, narcissism and refusal to commit. Sure, she’s charming and beautiful and gloriously strong willed. But she also toys with her two worthy suitors in ways that hurt them badly … and they’re largely willing to stick around for more such treatment.

Does that reflect their inherently noble hearts? Or is more of an inflamed refusal to move on? Is it right and good to keep the spark alive for a woman who uses her independence to snub and ensnare? To serve her own passions? To do exactly what she wants to do, at almost any cost?

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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Far from the Madding Crowd review – solid, but needs more mud

Thomas Vinterburg’s adaptation of the Hardy classic is handsome and well played but could do with a little less polish

D anish director Thomas Vinterberg’s take on Thomas Hardy’s earthy tale of an independent woman torn between three suitors and a dream of self-determination is both self-consciously modern and oddly old-fashioned. Carey Mulligan is Bathsheba Everdene, unexpected inheritor of her uncle’s farm, which is sorely in need of a firm hand. Proving herself more than a match for any man, Bathsheba swithers between the proposals of solid Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) and wealthy William Boldwood (an excellently uneasy Michael Sheen) only to fall for rakish Sergeant Troy (Tom Sturridge) and his sexy sword-waving skills – a scene rendered with less gropey lust but more breathlessly passionate weirdness in John Schlesinger’s recently reissued 1967 adaptation .

Shot on film by cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen, this captures its Dorset scenery (“200 miles from London” we are told) in hues that are both bucolic and foreboding; the opening shot finds Bathsheba emerging from darkness, a portentous visual motif that continues throughout the film. Screenwriter (and novelist) David Nicholls, who wrote the BBC’s 2008 Tess of the D’Urbervilles mini-series, plays up the story’s proto-feminist core, Bathsheba explicitly declaring herself to be “too independent” for marriage while wrestling with a language designed by and for men. Mulligan takes all this in her stride, her “woman out of time” bristling with proudly untamed energy, the master of men and horses alike. There’s some sympathy, too, for the rotten Sergeant Troy, whose jilted-at-the-altar tear underwrites his anger with pathos – a quality notably lacking from Terence Stamp’s 1960s portrayal.

Whether this adds substantially to Schlesinger’s classic (which was roughly received at the time) remains a moot point. Vinterberg, who made his name with Festen and its flip-side Jagten , reins in the gruelling emotional cruelties of yore, treating the text respectfully if playfully, relishing the opportunity to indulge its scenic charms, amplified by the ascending larks of much lush swooning music. Personally, I could have done with a little more mud, a touch of the Andrew Köttings to take the designer edge of these dirty faces. But it’s solid stuff; well played, affectionately told, and still stirring in its role reversals, both personal and political.

• Far From the Madding Crowd 2015
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Equipped with its own brand of rough-hewn glamour, the new film version of the 1874 love quadrangle “Far From the Madding Crowd” is a long way from the widescreen, 171-minute running time and anachronistic Julie Christie eyeliner of the Thomas Hardy novel’s best-known previous adaptation, released in 1968.

In ’68 the posters for director John Schlesinger’s version touted the story of “a willful passionate girl … and the three men who want her!” Little of that sort of fulminating can be found in the vicinity of director Thomas Vinterberg’s version, a relatively compact and forcefully acted affair starring Carey Mulligan as the farmer-heroine Bathsheba Everdeen. For those working from the contemporary literary perspective of “The Hunger Games,” yes, Katniss Everdeen is named after Hardy’s magnetic character. And as ever, there are three men who want her.

The new film’s adapation by David Nicholls tightens the focus on the relationship between Everdeen and her first serious suitor, the sheep farmer Gabriel Oak, played by the Belgian-born heartthrob Matthias Schoenaerts. Hardy’s narrative contrives, exquisitely, to torture his characters with massive reversals of fortune as Everdeen’s life as an independent agent becomes complicated by the dashing-yet-weaselly soldier Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge). The third gent in her life is the older man next door, prosperous bachelor William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), who pines and pines and bides his time while Everdeen’s life proceeds along Destiny’s path.

It’s a nice-looking path: Vinterberg shot “Far From the Madding Crowd” in some choice English locations. The Danish-born director’s earlier work includes “The Celebration” and, more recently, “The Hunt,” tales of rampant, crushing hypocrisy and poisonous social mores. With the Hardy project, Vinterberg ventures into related yet different territory. Everdeen exists in Hardy’s novel to be underestimated, dismissed, written off — her triumph is a triumph of resolve over expectation. While some of the requirements of Hardy’s narrative elude or simply do not interest Vinterberg — in general, the bigger and more “scenic” the moment, the less compelling it comes off — he’s a strong partner to his key actors.

Mulligan is pretty terrific as Everdeen. For any performer playing a protagonist ahead of her time, the challenge is to respect the boundaries of what that character was, and is, up against. At times Mulligan’s knowing half-smile suggests a woman slightly out of period. But her technique is shrewd and assured, and Vinterberg’s (relatively steady) deployment of hand-held cameras brings us close to the faces, and the predicaments.

I can’t help but wish this new “Far From the Madding Crowd” came with the thrill of interpretive discovery, the way Jane Campion gave Henry James’ “Portrait of a Lady” a good shaking-up or, more conventionally, the way James Ivory mainstreamed E.M. Forster in “A Room With a View” and “Howards End.” This achievement isn’t quite that. But a good, solid version of this novel, guided by Mulligan, is still an achievement.

“Far From the Madding Crowd” – 3 stars

MPAA rating : PG-13 (for some sexuality and violence)

Running time : 1:59

Opens : Friday

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Carey Mulligan Deserves Better Than She Gets in Far from the Madding Crowd

By Richard Lawson

There’s something both admirably and frustratingly polite about the latest adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd . Directed by Thomas Vinterberg , the countryside romance is rapturously filmed ( Charlotte Bruus Christensen did the lush, sun-soaked photography) and quietly pitched, built like one long swoon that takes its sweet time getting to the light-headedness. It’s not forceful or manipulative the way, say, Joe Wright’s gaudy and overwrought Anna Karenina was a few years ago. Vinterberg has made a gentle, unintrusive film, graceful and too refined to speak out of turn.

Which is where the frustration creeps in. The script, adapted from Hardy’s novel by David Nicholls , is ultimately too restrained; by the end, the film has transformed its headstrong heroine, the clever and resourceful gentlewoman farmer Bathsheba Everdene, into a passive part of the scenery. In trying to create a Bathsheba who is all poise and careful manners, the film gradually saps her of any real narrative agency. She starts the film as the impressive lead, but then slowly recedes and recedes, until you almost forget that the movie was once all about her. The film doesn’t so much flip perspectives, from Bathsheba to the three lovelorn men in her life, as it does smear everything with its brush of elegant reserve until it’s all a blurry, static watercolor.

That’s a shame, because Bathsheba is played by Carey Mulligan , a great English actress who can more than hold a film for its duration. In Mulligan’s hands, Bathsheba, who inherits an uncle’s farm estate and decides to run it herself, is proud of her independence. But, given her era, she also seems resigned to the loneliness, and alienation, that will come attendant with it. She’s not a cold fish, though—she’s clearly got a crush on a local shepherd, Gabriel Oak, and who wouldn’t when he looks like Matthias Schoenaerts . And she later falls into an ill-advised relationship with a weaselly soldier named Francis Troy ( Tom Sturridge ), letting herself be overcome by lust and curiosity. Still, Bathsheba is largely tentative about her emotions, judicious and practical and graciously blunt.

Well, until she stops being real and starts getting polite, which is where Far from the Madding Crowd gets a bit muddy. Bathsheba has a third suitor in the mix, Michael Sheen’s stiff, sad Lord Boldwood, for whom she has an intellectual affection but no real yearning. Bathsheba tells Boldwood as much, but he sticks around hoping she’ll change her mind. Is she giving mixed signals? Maybe. What does she really want? It’s hard to tell, actually, which often makes the movie feel aimless. The trouble with Nicholls’s imprecise script is that it lets Bathsheba wander out of focus. When looking back at the film as a whole, it’s awfully hard to suss out any of her motivations at any given time. The film eventually is less about a woman making choices and more about a story making them for her.

I suppose there might be some meta-feminist subtext at work there. And perhaps there’s a whole inner world whirring in Bathsheba’s head and heart that I’m meant to be tuned into. Maybe some people who watch Far from the Madding Crowd will find that frequency. But my head and heart remained largely unstirred as this pretty, polished little film unfolded. It is nice to watch, though. Mulligan and Schoenaerts, whose characters delicately circle each other for years, do a good romantic ping-pong. And they are sweetly mismatched, she all small and pixie-faced, he looking like a gentle Belgian giant. She has less sparkle or fizz or whatever you want to call it with Sturridge, but maybe that’s because his character might as well have “MISTAKE” written on his forehead when he first stumbles into Bathsheba’s life. As for Sheen, we’re meant to both pity and be annoyed by him, and we do, we are. His role in the story is the biggest question mark—where will this sad-sack end up?—but when his fate is finally revealed, it plays like a sigh of “Well, of course.” It all works out rather tidily for Bathsheba, though.

From an admittedly simplistic perspective, Far from the Madding Crowd is the story of five wedding proposals, and two yeses. The second yes comes at the very end of the film, and one need only watch the first five minutes of the movie to know who the lucky suitor will be. (Speaking of proposals, should they do a Madding Crowd adaptation about promposals? I say yes. ) Vinterberg has no intention of hiding his film’s soft, romantic heart; he lays it all out there with every poignant little scene and glowing Wessex vista. And I don’t mind the expected conclusion. It’s pleasant. But I wish the film still managed to keep Bathsheba, with all of Carey Mulligan’s sprightliness and warmth, an active player in the story, despite her inevitable end. She earns it.

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By Matthew Jacobs

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Richard Lawson

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Far From the Madding Crowd

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Cheers to Danish director Thomas Vinterberg for blowing the antiquated dust off Thomas Hardy’s 1874 novel about a willful heroine who’d rather muck about in sheep dip on a farm she inherited than marry guys who treat her like property. John Schlesinger made a long, lumpy film of the novel in 1967 that even a luminous Julie Christie couldn’t lift from the doldrums.

Vinterberg, working from a tight script by David Nicholls, cuts to the chase. And he has the magnificent Carey Mulligan to play Bathsheba Everdeen, a proto-feminist in the Katniss manner. Sheepherder Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) and gentleman farmer William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) propose to her practically on first sight. She refuses. “I’d like to be a bride at a wedding,” she says, “but without a husband.” Then Bathsheba falls hard for Sgt. Troy (Tom Sturridge), a dashing soldier with a saber he likes to thrust at her face like a swinging dick. Hot stuff for a period film set in the English countryside. Vinterberg may rush the final act, but he gets pitch-perfect performances from Schoenaerts, Sheen and Sturridge and brings out the wild side in Mulligan, who can hold a close-up like nobody’s business. She’s a live wire in a movie that knows how to stir up a classic for the here and now.

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Far from the Madding Crowd

In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a reckless Sergeant; and William Boldw... Read all In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood, a prosperous and mature bachelor. In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood, a prosperous and mature bachelor.

• Thomas Vinterberg
• Thomas Hardy
• David Nicholls
• Carey Mulligan
• Matthias Schoenaerts
• Michael Sheen
• 185 User reviews
• 215 Critic reviews
• 71 Metascore
• 2 wins & 11 nominations

• Bathsheba Everdene

• Gabriel Oak

• William Boldwood

• Sergeant Francis Troy

• Sergeant Doggett

• Fanny Robbin

• Joseph Poorgrass

• Jacob Smallbury

• Bailiff Pennyways

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• Trivia Carey Mulligan suggested Matthias Schoenaerts for the role of Gabriel Oak after having seen him in Rust and Bone (2012) . Mulligan told Total Film, "The minute I saw Rust and Bone I called [director] Thomas Vinterberg and I was like, 'That's who I want!'. He's brilliant - one of those effortlessly manly actors".
• Goofs In the final scene when Gabriel leaves the farm he is wearing white trousers and white shirt with a dark waistcoat but shortly later when B catches up with him he is dressed in completely different clothes.

Bathsheba Everdene : It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language chiefly made by men to express theirs.

• Connections Featured in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Alan Cumming/Carey Mulligan/Ludacris (2015)
• Soundtracks Jerusalem the Golden Lyrics by Bernard of Cluny Translated by John M. Neale Music by Alexander Ewing

User reviews 185

• May 2, 2015
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• May 22, 2015 (United States)
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• Mapperton, Beaminster, Dorset, England, UK (Bathsheba Everdene's farm)
• Fox Searchlight Pictures
• TSG Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• £12,000,000 (estimated)
• $12,236,500
• May 3, 2015
• $30,599,369

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• Runtime 1 hour 59 minutes
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'Far From the Madding Crowd' Puts a Satisfyingly Modern Spin on Thomas Hardy's Romantic Love Letter to Rural Life

Carey Mulligan and Tom Sturridge in "Far From the Madding Crowd" 

(Photo: Searchlight Pictures)

For all that Thomas Hardy's novels are now considered classics of English literature, they were remarkably modern, forward-thinking texts at the time of their publication. His works feature complex female protagonists and often focus on controversial issues, including sex, religion, marriage, and education. Rather than idolize the Victorian era, Hardy did his best to explore how social constraints frequently limited the lives of ordinary people, and the decline of life in rural England. Far From the Madding Crowd was his fourth novel but first commercial success, a story set against the seemingly idyllic backdrop of a farming community that deals with the harsh realities those living in this picturesque world often face. 

The 2015 feature film adaptation of Hardy's work, helmed by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg , condenses many of the novel's broader themes, streamlining its story into a more straightforward and easily digestible romance tale. But visually, this Far From the Madding Crowd embraces much of the author's favored aesthetic, crafting a lush version of late nineteenth-century Wessex teeming with bright colors, abundant life, and plenty of natural light. Its farmlands feel lived in and accessible, full of both beauty and the threat of danger, and it's clear how interconnected this land and the characters living in it are to one another, whether they want to be or not. Thus, grounded in the rhythms and cycles of farm life seems to permit the film to be a bit transgressive, abbreviating the text in specific ways that may spell things out for viewers too often but still give the characters space to breathe and grow. 

In its most basic sense, the story follows an independent-minded young woman who inherits a farm and decides to run it herself, declaring that she does not need a husband. Of course, this means she ends up with three different suitors and must grow up and learn herself enough to choose between them, and all manner of consequences ensue, for everyone involved. Quietly, yet radically feminist and featuring the rarest of all Hardy narrative choices (a happy ending), Far From the Madding Crowd still feels painfully modern, even hundreds of years later. Are there things it could do better? Absolutely. (Poor Juno Temple deserved so much more than a chance to show up onscreen for five minutes and die.) But it gets much of the story's spirit right, which must count for something. 

Carey Mulligan in "Far From the Madding Crowd" 

Bathsheba Everdene's name probably sounds familiar to people who've never read Thomas Hardy's book. Author Suzanne Collins gave The Hunger Games heroine Katniss a variation of her last name in homage to her as a fellow young woman who often struggled with knowing her own heart. Because the truth is, as a character, Bathsheba is unlike any other heroine of her era. She's impetuous, headstrong, and independent in ways that are hard not to immediately love, and her determination to plot her future without caring what those around her think is a luxury that many (most?) of her contemporary literary sisters do not have. 

A woman who, thanks to wealth and providence, can remain unmarried, make her own choices, run a farm on her own, and be respected (or, at least, treated ) as a boss and a landowner. She has such freedom and agency but still has little understanding of the consequences of her actions. Actress Carey Mulligan infuses her with a compelling charm and brisk directness that speaks of a woman who knows her own mind — even when her actions don't always back that assumption up. She's not always likable, but she's fascinating to watch. 

Throughout the film, Mulligan's Bathsheba walks a fine line between admirable and awful, and her character has plenty of flaws. The same independent streak that makes her such a compelling heroine also can occasionally make her a terrible person --- she's frequently selfish and self-centered, downright brutal in her refusals to the various men who propose to her. The alleged "prank" she plays on William Boldwood feels deliberately cruel, and the film gives us precious little motivation (beyond sheer boredom) for why she'd send a fake provocative Valentine to a man she barely knows and isn't especially interested in beyond mockery—her infatuation with Sgt. Frank Troy lacks the self-awareness she applies to almost every other situation, and watching her give in so quickly to such an obvious cad is somehow both tragic and vaguely cringe-worthy. 

Michael Sheen in "Far From the Madding Crowd"

One of the most interesting choices this particular adaptation makes is how it handles the character of William Boldwood. A wealthy, older (I mean, not that by much the man is like forty ) neighbor of Bathsheba's, he's rumored to have been jilted by love in the past and remains unmarried despite his generally eligible nature. In Hardy's novel, Boldwood has serious stalker vibes, a man who drives himself insane over a woman he wants but can't have. He's not an option that Bathsheba could (or should!) genuinely consider. 

But the 2015 film softens Boldwood considerably, turning the character into a lonely, socially awkward gentleman who seems to have more than made his peace with a life without much in the way of love in it, at least, until he receives an unexpected Valentine from his new neighbor, who has never given him any reason to doubt that her interest is genuine. (Or she's a woman who plays cruel tricks on a stranger she barely knows.) His proposal is authentic, and the film takes pains to present him as a decent, kind, romantic alternative, albeit one that lacks the overt passion that Frank Troy will introduce to our heroine's life. 

Part of this is likely due to the unexpected warmth of Michael Sheen's performance, which reimagines Boldwood as more of someone you'd like to hug or push a cup of tea on than the obsessive creep we see in the original story. But — and it may be because I am a bit older now than the last time I saw this movie, have gotten married, and have gone through my own Sgt. Troy phase already — there's something about this particular incarnation of the character that honestly feels like a safe, decent choice and might deserve more consideration than Bathsheba gives him — just saying.

 Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts in "Far From the Madding Crowd"

Bathsheba will ultimately end up with the supportive sheepherder Gabriel Oak, whose very name conveys the sense of sturdiness and purpose that the story eventually decides is what its heroine truly needs. He's always there, always supportive, can't ever seem to leave even when he wants to try to do so, and repeatedly puts Bathsheba's needs above his own. It's not awful, and as plenty of other literature from this period reminds us, she could do much worse. 

To his credit, he respects her fire and independence in a way that won't require her to become lesser to be with him. That's no small thing. But it's also true that Gabriel is more attractive as an idea than a person. His personality is only sketched out in the vaguest of terms, and he has no real arc throughout the film. He begins the movie by proposing to Bathsheba and ends it the same way — the difference is that Bathsheba and her answer change. Gabriel's steadiness is likely the primary reason he's the perfect choice for her, but it doesn't make him particularly deep or compelling to watch. He's also, not for nothing, kind of a terrible sheep farmer, given how many of his charges die or contract potentially deadly illnesses. 

But despite the generally dull and deeply predictable nature of Gabriel as the story's ultimate romantic choice, it doesn't necessitate the importance and quiet power of the fact that Bathsheba gets to choose for herself. So many women aren't granted that opportunity, whether for good or ill. But Far From the Madding Crowd never denies Bathsheba the gift of her own agency, and even when she's making terrible decisions, we should be celebrating this classic's inclusion of the very modern idea that she ought to be allowed to make them at all.

Far From the Madding Crowd is streaming on Max.

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Lacy's love of British TV is embarrassingly extensive, but primarily centers around evangelizing all things  Doctor Who,  and watching as many period dramas as possible.

Digital media type by day, she also has a fairly useless degree in British medieval literature, and dearly loves to talk about dream poetry, liminality, and the medieval religious vision. (Sadly, that opportunity presents itself very infrequently.) York apologist, Ninth Doctor enthusiast, and unabashed Ravenclaw. Say hi on Threads or Blue Sky at @LacyMB. 

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Review: ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ a bare-bones stab at love, desire

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Why is the allure of the bad boy so powerful that even some of the most secure of females can’t seem to resist?

Apparently, it has ever been, as we see in the film adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s prescient novel “Far from the Madding Crowd.” Set in backcountry Britain circa 1870, the Victorian realist created romantic entanglements for its heroine, Bathsheba Everdene — an excellent Carey Mulligan — who could be plucked out of the pages of a contemporary bestseller.

Directed with sensitivity to the source by veteran Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg, the story is pared to the bone by screenwriter David Nicholls (“Great Expectations”). This is a far lighter examination of the emotional crosscurrents of love and desire that Hardy dived into so deeply. Less angst, less heart.

Still, “Far” makes its case that no matter how distant one gets from the madding crowd — in place or time — finding true love is just as bedeviling.

The film opens in rural England with its rich, green rolling pastures, its sheep perfectly scattered, its wheat and corn fields a patchwork of color and texture, the scene of the type that inspires painters. Verdant woods, winding roads, cobblestone villages.

Bathsheba is of the type who inspires painters too, a spirited beauty who cherishes her independence. As she puts it to the first man to ask for her hand, she isn’t interested in being anyone’s property. To a later suitor, she will say she is self-sufficient, in no need of a husband. If only a rogue hadn’t come along to ruffle feathers.

The three men in Bathsheba’s life comprise an interesting collection of characters and actors: Matthias Schoenaerts plays the long-devoted, stoic shepherd Gabriel Oak, Michael Sheen the gentleman farmer William Boldwood, and Tom Sturridge is Sgt. Francis Troy — the bad boy of the bunch.

All of this is wonderfully realized on-screen by a crack creative team starting with Danish cinematographer and frequent Vinterberg collaborator Charlotte Bruus Christensen and production designer Kave Quinn. Janet Patterson as head of costume design is perhaps the one responsible for coming up with a distinct vision for what could only be called farm couture. Somehow, the muck never messes with the dresses... Glasgow-born musician Craig Armstrong sets it all to a merry old England sound. Wind instruments are involved.

When her story begins, Bathsheba is helping her aunt with the hard work of a small farm. She is educated but orphaned and at that moment has nothing to her name but a marked independent streak and a comely face. Gabriel’s is the next farm over, and it takes not much more than a few minutes of observation before he’s smitten and asking to marry. Her answer is no.

Fortunes change. She inherits a distant uncle’s farm and takes charge of putting the estate and its herds and produce in order, a shock to the locals. Gabriel loses his holdings and finds himself working for Bathsheba, or “Miss Everdene,” as she reminds him, to make their relative position in life clear.

In small ways like this, “Far” exposes the class divides that have as much to do with marriage at the time as emotion.

Meanwhile, Boldwood, a bachelor whose farm is adjacent to Bathsheba’s, is soon pursuing her. That she doesn’t love him — a point she makes clear — is not an issue. For Boldwood, she is the treasure he cannot have, and soon he is obsessed.

With Gabriel much reduced in station but devoted still and Boldwood pressing for a commitment, the stage is set for the storm that is Sgt. Francis Troy.

Troy is coming off heartbreak. Winsome local farm maid Fanny Robbin (Juno Temple) is the reason. He has station but no money. And Bathsheba proves an easy mark.

This change of heart in our heroine suffers most from the leanness of the script. In Hardy’s novel, her feelings are much more tied into Troy’s sexual magnetism and what the young woman senses — that the dashing sergeant is the one man who doesn’t need her.

In the film, however, it seems that just a bit of fancy sword work does the trick. All we’ve been given to believe about Bathsheba crumbles in a few unbelievable moments, along with a stray lock of hair the sword slices away. Even Mulligan, as good as she is at giving Bathsheba a spine and a spirit, fades at this point.

The film’s best pairing is between Mulligan and Schoenaerts. Because Oak’s unwavering devotion anchors the narrative, it’s definitely the one to get right. Both characters are strong and stubborn, and yet the attraction is there. The actors make that tension palpable — a world of love, tenderness, hurt, rejection, respect playing out in their glances and brief conversations.

Sadly, Sheen, so brilliant as sex researcher Dr. William Masters in the smart spice of Showtime’s “Masters of Sex,” has little room to get into the desperation and obsession that defines Boldwood’s wooing of Bathsheba. A similar fate awaits Sturridge: The actor simply isn’t given enough time to stir the kind of passion that would sweep the pragmatic Bathsheba off her feet. His brooding darkness was much better used in 2012’s “On the Road.”

Fortunes change again with the return of that pretty farm maid Fanny Robbin. But by this point, the film, if not the crowd, has become madding in its hurry to finish up.

Between the sheer on-screen beauty and the finely wrought performances of Mulligan and Schoenaerts, “Far from the Madding Crowd” has its appeal. Yet like unrequited love, one can’t help but lament what might have been.

Twitter: @BetsySharkey

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Former Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey is an award-winning entertainment journalist and bestselling author. She left the newsroom in 2015. In addition to her critical essays and reviews of about 200 films a year for The Times, Sharkey’s weekly movie reviews appeared in newspapers nationally and internationally. Her books include collaborations with Oscar-winning actresses Faye Dunaway on “Looking for Gatsby” and Marlee Matlin on “I’ll Scream Later.” Sharkey holds a degree in journalism and a master’s in communications theory from Texas Christian University.

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Far From the Madding Crowd

Where to watch.

Watch Far From the Madding Crowd with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Far from the Madding Crowd invites tough comparisons to Thomas Hardy's classic novel -- and its previous adaptation -- but stands on its own thanks to strong direction and a talented cast.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Thomas Vinterberg

Carey Mulligan

Bathsheba Everdene

Matthias Schoenaerts

Gabriel Oak

Michael Sheen

William Boldwood

Tom Sturridge

Juno Temple

Fanny Robin

Best Movies to Stream at Home

Movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

• Fox Searchlight Pictures

Summary Independent, beautiful and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), a sheep farmer, captivated by her fetching willfulness; Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge), a handsome and reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), a prosperous and mature bachelor. ... Read More

Directed By : Thomas Vinterberg

Written By : Thomas Hardy, David Nicholls

Far from the Madding Crowd

Where to watch.

Carey Mulligan

Bathsheba everdene.

Matthias Schoenaerts

Gabriel oak.

Michael Sheen

William boldwood.

Tom Sturridge

Sergeant francis troy, tilly vosburgh.

Mark Wingett

Dorian lough, sam phillips, sergeant doggett.

Juno Temple

Fanny robbin, bradley hall, joseph poorgrass.

Hilton McRae

Jacob smallbury.

Jessica Barden

Harry peacock.

Victor McGuire

Bailiff pennyways, farmer stone, pauline whitaker, parishioner, belinda low, parishioner #2, leonard szepietowski, all saints vicar, all souls vicar, andrew price, critic reviews.

• All Reviews
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User Reviews

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