Kate Winslet Movie:

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		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom didn't make a particularly good film until Welcome to Sarajevo, and this curiously dry adaptation of Thomas Hardy's last novel is a good example. Christopher Eccleston plays Jude Fawley, a self-educated stonemason who dreams of attending university but identifies with the working class. Kate Winslet is his cousin Sue Bridehead, a young woman with suffragette leanings and a position as a teacher's assistant. When the two enter into an illicit union, they are condemned to the margins of society, ultimately resulting in a horrifying tragedy. Winterbottom takes an oddly lean approach to Hardy's deterministic story, which leaves a viewer feeling short on emotion just when one needs it for the from-bad-to-worse third act. Welcome to Sarajevo proved that Winterbottom needs a whole other level of personal involvement to make a film that inspires him. Jude isn't one of those lucky films. --Tom Keogh

Jude [Region 2] Reviews:
Not your regular romantic movie, but something even more
2009-04-11 - I was stunned, honestly stunned. Its one of the rare films on incestuous relationships and I really, really loved it. The film offers a lot more than just regular stories plucked from the pages of Romantic novels. The purity, the passion, the tension shown between the two characters in the film. A strong chemistry between Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccleston had my eyes glued on the screen, I refused to blink even once while watching, I was so compelled, so overwhelmed by the acting and direction of the film. Its quite an unusual film, but truly a beautiful one, Incestuous relations may not be liked by everyone, but the film is quite an experience, quite a journey. Don't overlook this gem!

Still Waiting on the World to Change....
2008-12-15 - I normally like these kind of movies. Period picture, forbidden love, obsession. Has anyone made a movie of Flaubert's SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION? Oh, well, there's several versions of MADAME BOVARY. That fascinating train wreck of a love in WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Something with a stuffy veneer but a destructive burning passion underneath.

Then there's JUDE.

The elements were there and it's terrifically shot and acted but...yikes. The story just doesn't carry its audience into sympathizing for these lovers. The "society" isn't personified enough to provide a good villain. A guy who wants to marry his cousin wouldn't fly too well RIGHT NOW, let alone way back in the day. After so much destructive calamity is inflicted on this couple--and you definitely get the feeling that much more than merely other people and society is against them--even you're ready to throw in the towel on this affair.

If you're the kind of person who wants to only see Kate Winslet naked...you're really going to dislike this movie. This isn't a Skinna-Max late night romp (NAKED EYES 5 or something), it's not even THE STORY OF O or HENRY AND JUNE, it's a serious adaption of a really old book. From reading the other reviews, it sounds like they inserted a sex scene that didn't even appear in the novel (I've only read one Hardy novel so far).

Before catastrophe strikes (and a WAY over the top disaster), Jude says that he's "waiting for the world to change" to accept living and having children with his cousin as a common-law wife. After watching JUDE, the world looks like it's ready to come after you if you pull that stuff.

Watch Something Else!
2008-09-09 - Two hours of my time were wasted by watching this dreary film. I kept hoping it would get better, but no. It's relentlessly cruel, achingly futile and supremely depressing. Not even it's two very talented stars could elevate this material. Watch anything else!

A good soundtrack in search of a movie.
2006-05-05 - About the only thing this movie has going for it is the excellent music. The producers of this film are out of their mind if they expect any viewer who's not screwed-up in the head to feel sorry for the two stupid main characters just because their sick, incestuous, and adulterous lifestyle is incompatible with the world they live in. If you want to leave your entertainment center in a good mood, don't watch this!

A tangled web of breaking social codes
2006-03-02 - This was Winslet's pre-Titanic post-Heavenly Creatures film baed on the Thomas Hardy novel. It's a story with very shocking social themes for the period setting: cousins in love, one being married to a woman who has committed bigamy, illigetimate children, fratricide, social exclusion, poverty, adultery, and all sorts of class struggles made harder by very unpopular social choices. The film is long, detailed, complicated, and there is an unusual chemistry between Winslet and her co-star. It's hard to day what the theme or "moral" of the story is but does lend itself to social commentary. The characters are victims of many social demands of the time and prove that doing everything in the name of love can be a very bad thing. They just can't get ahead in life because of their choices. In the end the love destroys both of them with Winslet turning to religion in repentance and her cousin/lover forced to live alone and in yearning for her.