Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
A strong-willed peasant girl is sent by her father to the estate of some local aristocrats to capitalize on a rumour that their families are from the same line. This fateful visit commences an epic narrative of sex, class, betrayal, and revenge.
Polanski's adaptation of Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a visually ravishing epic, shot by Geoffrey Unsworth and Ghislain Cloquet across Norman landscapes standing in for Dorset. The cinematography earned an Oscar for its lush, painterly compositions and naturalistic light. The plot faithfully captures Hardy's brutal critique of Victorian class and gender hypocrisy, with the tragic arc delivered with full weight. Nastassja Kinski's Tess is a quietly powerful performance — affecting if occasionally uneven, which keeps Acting from the top tier. The film's fidelity to the source and its period-drama form hold Novelty at a solid but not exceptional level; it is a superb literary adaptation rather than a formally inventive work. The ending, however, is devastating and memorably staged — Stonehenge as final sanctuary before inevitable doom is one of cinema's great tragic conclusions.