Rupert Graves, Toby Stephens and Tara Fitzgerald star in this Peabody Award and BAFTA winning BBC Adaptation of the Anne Brontë novel. Powerful, haunting and disturbing, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is as powerful a story as those of Brontë's more famous sisters. In a remote village on the Yorkshire moors, a beautiful widow and her son move into the near-derelict Wildfell Hall. Befriended by a handsome young farmer, she remains mysteriously silent about her past and why she is afraid - until she becomes the focus of malicious village gossip.
The BBC adaptation of Anne Bronte's moral tale The Tenant of Wildfell Hall will be a delight to those who revel in classics brought to the screen. Tara Fitzgerald stars as Helen Graham, a secretive woman who seeks independence for herself and her son from her cruel husband, Arthur Huntingdon. Huntingdon, a rake taken with women and drink, is played to perfection by Rupert Graves, believable as both the young lover who seduces Helen and as the depraved and brutish man he becomes. Toby Stephens is Gilbert Markham, the suspicious yet adoring yeoman farmer smitten with the supposed widow. The scenery and costumes of this period piece are lush, although the use of flashback as a narrative device is at times jarring. This tale is darker than the Jane Austen adaptations that BBC audiences are used to, yet the two-part film has an ending satisfying enough for even the most cynical of romantics. --Jenny Brown
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
It Has Its Virtues, But It Won't Be to Everyone's Taste:
"The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," a feature-length 1996 television costume drama produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation, was seen here on broadcast TV in 1997. It was based upon the little-known book of the same name, published in 1848, by the Victorian-era British author Anne Bronte. She is the least-known of the three famous Bronte sisters, all of whom specialized in moody works set on England's scenic moors, upon which they were raised. Emily Bronte, of course, gave us "Wuthering Heights;"... more info
not a favorite:
Some times you win and really enjoy a movie this one I did not win. Not a favorite for me.
cruelty vs. unrelenting love:
Wow, what an intense, dark Gothic romance! A mysterious, beautiful widow with a past arrives with her son to a nosey, judgemental countryside town. A past that is slowly unraveled with the pryings of a handsome, obsessed suitor. The actors are superb: Tara Fitzgerald(Helen), whom I simply adore as an actress, as the long suffering, fiel heroine with a lesson to learn and a son to protect, Rupert Graves(Arthur)as the depraved, never changing, rogue, 'Byron' whom she can't stop loving, and Toby... more info
Doro's Opinion:
I really enjoyed this one. It kept me guessing and held me to the end. I look forward to seeing it again. True to the English countryside and culture of the period, it is worth viewing many times.
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