Far From The Madding Crowd

Sweeping and romantic and dramatic and enveloping: “Far from the Madding Crowd” is all those things.

Director Thomas Vinterberg’s movie is based on Thomas Hardy’s novel about a feisty, independent woman in Victorian England who becomes wealthy after inheriting a farm and is pursued by trio of suitors.

In the lead role, Carey Mulligan proves again that she deserves to be on the A list of actresses — she holds the screen with an alert intelligence and expressive openness. Just wonderful.

Her male admirers are a wildly eclectic lot: Matthias Schoenaerts is all manly stoicism, letting his brooding emotions flash from his amber eyes. A stammering Michael Sheen breaks your heart as a rich but shyly awkward neighbor. And Tom Sturridge personifies shallow beauty as a louche military man who sweeps Mulligan’s character off her feet.

While I loved the movie, I will say that the director sometimes spends too much time on atmospheric scenes while rushing plot points (Mulligan’s lust for and then antipathy toward Sturridge, for instance).

One more thing: Much of this was shot outdoors in England, and it looks lush and gorgeous. Green screens and CGI got nothin’ on Mother Nature.