Hello, hello! Saw two films that have definite meaning in my life, one an adaptation of a book I love (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and the director of one of my favorite films of all-time (Cary Joji Fukunaga).
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
It gets the fast and frenetic pace of the book generally right. Almost too right, I think it'd be hard to keep up with all of the details unless you have prior knowledge of the first book. My favorite scene is the planet factory within Magrathea, I think Garth Jennings and crew nail both the visual effects and the mood. The biggest drawback for me was the sound design, which is made for a grand spectacle, but I think detracts from the off-beat intellectualism of the book. I just found it loud and bass-y for the sake of being loud and bass-y. Mos Def/Yasiin Bey and Sam Rockwell were also miscast, the former too one-note, the latter even more cartoonish than Zaphod Beeblebrox is in the book. Overall, I think the adaptation puts more emphasis on the bizarre and the spectacle than the book, which is smarter and doesn't have the burden of incorporating sound. I bet it's an absurdly difficult work of literature to film, anyway.
Jane Eyre
The first act had me, especially the opening sequence. Fukunaga pulled out all the shots to show Jane's harrowing escape from Thornfield Hall, with an especially grand wide angle shot or two plus tracking and close-ups. Flashing back to Jane as a young girl and the cruelty she experienced was also breath-taking. The second act is more like a standard Austin/Bronte love story, with rivals, misdirection, and finally the connection we'd all been waiting to see between a man and woman who were so obviously going to be together. I love the natural lighting, of course, and Fukunaga does great with the big reveal by not making it seem as big or dramatic as he could've. A good show of restraint. The final act was a little under cooked for me, and the final scene as expected but nothing greater. Admittedly, I don't know the story of Jane Eyre like I do Hitchhiker's Guide, so I'm not sure how it does as an adaptation, but it's a middling period romance for me. It did cause me to look up the value of 15, 30, and 20,000 English pounds from 1847 in today's value. I also got to think how I wouldn't mind being a governess - or whatever the male equivalent might be - so much. Live in a house of wealth, small class sizes, enough time probably for a hobby or two. Might not be so bad.