Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Catherine Zeta-Jones | ... |
Eustacia Vye
(as Catherine Zeta Jones)
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Clive Owen | ... |
Damon Wildeve
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Ray Stevenson | ... |
Clym Yeobright
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Steven Mackintosh | ... |
Diggory Venn
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Claire Skinner | ... |
Thomasin
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Paul Rogers | ... |
Captain Vye
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Joan Plowright | ... |
Mrs. Yeobright
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Celia Imrie | ... |
Susan Nunsuch
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Richard Avery | ... |
Humphrey
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Peter Wight | ... |
Timothy
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Jeremy Peters | ... |
Sam
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Greg Saunders | ... |
Charley
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John Boswall | ... |
Granfer Cande
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William Waghorn | ... |
Christian Cande
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Matthew Owens | ... |
Johnny
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Reddleman Diggory Venn drives slowly across the heath, carrying a hidden passenger in the back of his van. When darkness falls, the country folk light bonfires on the hills, emphasizing the pagan spirit of the heath and its denizens.
Thomas Hardy is one of my favorite authors. Some truly wonderful movies have been made from his novels ("Far From the Madding Crowd," "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," "The Mayor of Casterbridge"), and I had high hopes for this one. The Hallmark-Hall-of-Fame-ification of "Return of the Native" totally wrecked it. The cast was terrific, the photography excellent, but the script was dismal and the direction positively ruinous. People walked up to people, said lines, walked away. A meager excitement developed when Clive Owen and Catherine Zeta Jones (very young, very beautiful) exchanged a bit of flesh-pressing, but even Clive, who is a superb actor, couldn't save it. It was awash with the usual Hallmark "romantic" strings background music and pretend bumpkins offering plot exposition, and what could have been dynamite turned out to be awful. The richness of the above three movies was commpletely absent.