In a cinematic landscape populated by kick-ass car chases, killer robots and man-eating dinosaurs, a simple costume drama about whether or not two stubborn Brits will ever dismount their high horses long enough to make out might not seem like such a big deal. After all, why suffer through two straight hours of increasingly blue balls when instant gratification is right around the corner, on the adjacent screen, with surround sound so loud you can already feel the bass from 50 yards away?
Because Far from the Madding Crowd is an exercise in pure suspense, that’s why. No explosions are necessary when two sexy people are perfect for each other but too darned bullheaded to see it. Thomas Vinterberg’s costume drama, based on the 1874 novel by Thomas Hardy, eats right at the core of our purely empathic desire to see ideal lovers unite, and finds exquisitely frustrating ways to keep them apart, over and over.
Carey Mulligan stars as Bathsheba Everdene, a spirited young woman who rebukes a local farmer’s wedding proposal because she thinks he’s too timid to tame her. But somehow, that’s not even the worst part of his day: tragedy strikes and Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts) loses all of his possessions – even his beloved dog – and eventually winds up working for Bathsheba, after she inherits her own farm.
With romance seemingly out of the question between a master and her servant, Bathsheba finds herself instead wooed by two other men while Gabriel glares from the friendzone. William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) is a quiet, kind and awkward man, probably less capable of “taming” Bathsheba than Gabriel ever was. But then there’s Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge), a soldier who’s on one hell of a rebound after being stood up at the altar by Bathsheba’s former servant, Fanny (Juno Temple). Frank seduces Bathsheba by nearly cutting her face off, and Gabriel simply glowers in disapproval while the audience digs our nails increasingly deep into the armrests, praying to whatever god may be real and on call at the moment that she doesn’t marry the dapper young a-hole.
Vinterberg knows how to do the dance of frustration. He bathes Far from the Madding Crowd in romantic light and adorns Carey Mulligan in the cutest damned outfits ever tailored, setting the stage for romance whether we like it or not. It may be disturbing to watch a fiercely independent woman fall for the frat boy wiles of a mustachioed lothario, or even to watch an entire film centered around whether or not she will find the right man (who is, of course, squatting right behind her, shearing the sheep). But like all the characters in Far from the Madding Crowd, Bathsheba is only human, desperate for the love she thinks she wants and realizing far too late that romantic inexperience blinded her to what she actually needed: a partner, not an adventure. And who among us doesn’t sympathize with that?
We live in a blissfully modern society, in which we don’t have to marry the very first person who comes along and strikes our fancy. Period dramas like Far from the Madding Crowd have the unique capacity to make us thank our lucky stars that we live in the 21st Century, but also to make us wonder if our freedom has made us lose sight of real romance. There’s a smolder in practically every frame of Thomas Vinterberg’s film, a burst of passion that’s just waiting to break free. Waiting in rapt, nail-biting tension for even the tiniest bit of catharsis equates to wonderful drama, and if adorable hats can also enter into the equation, all the better.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
