Editorial Reviews

A prequel to "Jane Eyre." An Englishman in nineteenth-century Jamaica falls into a tortured marriage with a native Creole. When the woman begins to go mad, her husband takes her back to his gothic estate in England, where he locks her in the attic.

Product details

Language ‏ : ‎ English
Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.32 x 4.19 x 1.12 inches; 6.13 Ounces
Release date ‏ : ‎ March 3, 1998
Date First Available ‏ : ‎ February 9, 2007
Actors ‏ : ‎ Lombard, Parker, Robinson
Studio ‏ : ‎ New Line Studios
ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0780609611

Customer Reviews:
3.9 246 ratings

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3.9 out of 5

246 global ratings

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A. Masion

I tried, but I really couldn't understand.

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2005

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For the record I've never read "Wide Sargasso Sea" although I've read "Jane Eyre" quite a few times. I've always figured Edward Rochester was a bad man. Every relationship he had with women before his involvement with Jane ended badly. With one lunatic wife and one dead mistress...Well...

I admit to feeling equal parts awe and disappointment with this film. It wasn't that the erotic excesses offended me; I just felt less attention to erotic love scenes and more attention to the rather heavy themes in story would have made things more interesting.

The movie is not consistent with Rochester's portrayal in Jane Eyre or his explanations of his marriage to Antoinette. The implication is that Antoinette was descended from lunatics and was also a notorious adulteress (there were even hints her insanity was the result of syphilis in "Jane Eyre"). Antoinette's brother in the novel, Richard Mason, is completely eliminated as a character.

In the movie, Antoinette is presented as a lonely orphan with no close family to cover up her alleged madness and "vices".

There are other inconsistencies that just stray too far from Rochester's explanations as well as Bronte's novel to keep a true Bronte fan engaged.

Antoinette and Amelie are two-dimensional characters, competing for the sexual favors of Antoinette's loser husband who doesn't particularly like or respect either one of them.

It looks like the brains behind the film could not decide whether Edward Rochester was a racist libertine or a victim of circumstance. The balance is tipped by saddistic behavior (i.e., killing animals and brutalizing his young wife.) He is basically a fortune-hunter who does not hesitate to despise his wife's cultural differences once he's acquired her wealth and properties.

I think the writers hoped to create a theme of Black/African female empowerment by having Amelie seduce Rochester, then accept a gift of money from him and walk out of his life to become a whore.

Also, it is never clear to me when/how Antoinette went mad. She does not strike me as mad or even unstable in the course of the film although she does portray classic alcoholism and depression after her husband's abandonment. Surely no one presumes she is psychopathic because she tried to club Rochester with with a glass bottle and spit in his face after he had loud noisy sex with Amelie just outside her bedroom!

Even the portrayal of Daniel Cosway is sort of weird. One minute he appears to be affectionate towards Antoinette (his half-sister) and the next he is bound and determined to do everything he possibly can to ruin her marriage and destroy any opportunity for her happiness.

The two actresses who portray Aunt Cora and Christophine deliver solid performances and Lombard does her best with her role and makes the most of her improbable lingerie (midriff-baring camisoles were not around in 1840.)

The film has lush beautiful scenes and an almost fantasy quality about it and costume quality is good except for inaccutate lingerie. I think it's best to watch and appreciate the film for what it is and not worry too much about accuracy with its actual novel or Jane Eyre. As an erotic romance gone bad it's a keeper.

10 people found this helpful

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Would be improved by more character development

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2008

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I'm a great fan of _Jane Eyre_ but have not read _Wide Sargasso Sea_, though reviewers of the film say the book is better.

This could have been an excellent character film, showing how Rochester exaggerated his relationship with his wife "Bertha" to Jane. Was Mason the brother-in-law mad, and passing a hereditary madness on to "Bertha"? No, he and his brother (the one who married Antoinette/Bertha's widowed mother) were not only not even her biological relatives, they were merely dips. Was Antoinette's mother mad? According to Antoinette's account, merely grief-stricken, alcoholic, sexy, and socially inconvenient--hence, locked up by the men who had legal power over her. And why should Rochester believe the statements of Daniel the half-brother? First, Daniel is an extortionist. Second, his revelation that Antoinette's father had affairs with his slaves is deeply shocking to Rochester, who somehow blames it on Antoinette. While I'm not condoning it, many other slaveowners did the same, so it would hardly have shocked a period Jamaican. Rochester, in fact, consistently refuses to accept Jamaica--he's constantly complaining about the climate, doesn't understand the racial tensions, and so on.

Still, Rochester's character could have been developed more deeply. As for Antoinette, she's merely a one-dimensional "child of nature," devoted to long sleeps, sex, and an enjoyment of the sultry climate. Given that after her parents' death she seems to have been brought up in a Catholic boarding school, she should display more in the way of education, social graces, and well, character. A more rounded character would make Antoinette far more sympathetic. As it is, the viewer is tempted to side with Rochester in wanting a wife who is interested in more than sex.

And one thing that would have been far more powerful, is establishing Antoinette as locked up by Rochester merely as an inconvenience, an alcoholic wife who doesn't understand British culture. One scene with Rochester urging/paying a doctor to certify Antoinette as mad no matter what, would have done this beautifully.

Other than that, although Nathaniel Parker doesn't look bad in the nude, Antoinette is too scrawny (and seems unable to do anything with her hair other than a modern pageboy style, for in bed or out of it). In summary, the film would be far better with more emphasis on character and less on sex. I will say that the actors doing Afro-Haitian dance actually do it well, unlike the ludicrously stiff and unpractised attempts at walzing done by the actors playing British characters. Also, the scenery is gorgeous.

8 people found this helpful

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Ang Poon Kah

about the movie wide sargasso sea......

Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2003

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What I can basically say is that the actress when young saw her house was burned down by the nigerians and her mother(if I am not wrong) turns mad. I am not going to elaborate the story(no longer interesting) furthur for customer to find out for themselves. There are three erotic scene inside which I can say is normal as there is no so called explict sexual scenes inside. The NC-17 is more or less for show. One scene is the toucbing of ass scene between the actor and actress, the other is just only the facial expression of the actress during the first scene and the last, of course, is the sex scene which some called it as explicit to get the NC-17 rating. The story of this DVD is good and the scenes are very normal like a bright blue sky. ***A recommended purchase for those interested in this genre of movie on DVD***

6 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Kirsty

A haunting and provocative feminist masterpiece

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 19, 2020

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A beautiful film to look at full of poetic and sultry imagery.Karina lombard is luminous and almost hypnotic the defining film of her career in my opinion.
Nothing else has captured both her doe eyed innocence and also wild ethereal beauty to such devastating effect as this film. Indeed with her mixed french and native american heritage and born in tahiti it really does seem as if karina was born to play this part i simply cannot think of a better or more suitable actress.
To the reviewer who admonished her for being scrawny well i think that is part of her unique charm. No she is not the usual buxom wench/sex kitten our western eyes are saturated with she is instead more of the femme/infant willowy exotic beauty of say a nastassja kinski or a jane birkin.
A would be women waiting to blossom not having quite matured enough and still in thrall to long nights of passion and playfull games of skinnydipping and drinking in bed. She is young for heavens sake and enamoured of life so why not?
Add to this the staid and rather stiff mr rochester (not very well played by nathaniel parker in my opinion he just doesn't have the depth or range) and you can see trouble brewing on the horizon a mile off.She awakens his lust but also his misogyny predictably enough he decides to put her in her place with all the entitlement since time began of the white elitist male privilege thats what is really seductive to him a sense of power and domination.The film depicts racial abuse in a sympathetic and sensitive manner its definately a thread that runs through the film but handled with grace in my opinion.
Consider the scene for example when mr rochester tries to have christophene thrown out of the house (a superlative performance by claudia robinson who dominates every scene she is in) and she squares up to him rather like a cobra circling its prey and tells him straight you cannot arrest me or have me thrown out as i am a free women mr rochester.
Sadly probably the first and last time a women has the power to stand up to him without damaging herself because she can and does walk away.
The same cannot be said of Bertha mason (karina lombard) her struggle to be an equal and assert herself is both heartfelt and heartbreaking but by god she doesn't half try.That its futile and ends badly is no fault of hers but a damning expose of both misogyny and as said before entitled male privilege that the sneering mr rochester with his patronising attitude towards both the natives and then his wife (finding out she is maybe of creole extraction just gives him the excuse he needs to justify his hatred) kills any sense of natural beauty and bliss and sensuality.
In fact he acts as a repellant and people leave in droves no longer wanting to be a witness to an abusive man who has no respect for either his wife or the country she is born into.
This is the dashing tormented hero of jane eyre smashed to smithereens both by jean rhys who wrote the book and john duigan who directed the film and also by karina lombard who by potraying the pathos of bertha mason showed with such passion how women are enslaved and then ultimately abandoned by a cruel and brutal patriarchy who have little interest in (except for exploitation of) warmth or love or humanity.
They say that still waters run deep so give this film a try i admit on the surface it flowed too easily and i didn't think much of it upon first viewing but then a funny thing happened some time after it was finished it crept up on me almost by stealth and then i couldn't stop thinking about it and indeed felt compelled to write this review as i wanted to find out for myself why it lingered and why it haunted me so?
The answer i believe is in bertha mason she still exists the mad women in the attic (so called) a prisoner of gendered oppression a reminder to us all that as women our progress and empowerment is still difficult and still a battle to obtain it our freedom as human beings in case we forget!

One person found this helpful

Media Scribe

An interesting variant on Jane Eyre classic.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2022

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The good points are that the acting is fair and the scenes are splendid fully conveying the tropical and exotic setting. This is a well-crafted film. My only real criticism is that the story does not appeal to me because of the downbeat ending.

Tony Antonucciy

A good movie and hard to find.

Reviewed in Canada on July 27, 2021

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I liked the romantic movie,the actors, and the tropical setting.Also,it shows how bad they treated African slaves in the 18th century.

Cameron Prokopiw

Don't really know didn't see the movie given as a gift

Reviewed in Canada on July 25, 2021

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Used it as a gift

KJ Mansfield

Wide Sea Sargasso Dvd

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 8, 2009

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THis dvd is a good representation of the book, if you are someone who deoesnt like to read the books. This dvd is the closest thing you can get to representing the book.

5 people found this helpful

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