MercuryNews

San Jose Mercury News---September 11, 1998

A&E's `Tess' a splendid production

By Ron Miller

THOMAS Hardy's often-filmed masterpiece, ``Tess of the D'Urbervilles,'' which features his most beguiling yet tragic heroine, comes to television Sunday and Monday nights as a splendid new British-made television miniseries that renews the A&E network's bid to be recognized as cable cultural center.

Even if you're an admirer of Roman Polanski's1979 feature film ``Tess,''as I am, you're going to love this production, which is engrossing and relentlessly romantic and gives a star-making role to 22-year-old Justine Waddell, the luminous Laura from ``The Woman in White'' on last season's ``Mobil Masterpiece Theatre'' on PBS.

Kinski's strawberry

Though this ``Tess'' isn't as fundamentally erotic as Polanski's was -- nobody will ever be able to bite a ripe strawberry with quite the fervor Nastassia Kinski did in 1979 -- this version seems more properly English, no doubt because it wasn't filtered through the imaginations of a Polish director and his German leading lady.

Tess Durbeyfield is a decent girl whose own sense of honor brings her great unhappiness, even if it ultimately brings her inner peace. When we first meet her, she's a bright, resourceful girl of 16 who's aware of her beauty but naive about its effect.

Hoping the last descendants of the D'Urbervilles will look favorably on their comely daughter, the Durbeyfields send Tess off to make their acquaintance and ingratiate herself with them --unaware that the present D'Urbervilles are merely people who took up the abandoned family name. Tess is disgraced by Alec D'Urberville (Jason Flemyng), but finds love with a handsome young gentleman named Angel Clare (Oliver Milburn), who is learning the dairy business.

Waddell and Milburn are incandescently romantic. Those young moviegoers who responded so passionately to the romance of Kate Winslett and Leonardo DiCaprio in ``Titanic'' should go for this matchup, too, because the chemistry is similar and the tragic ending at Stonehenge nearly as heart-wrenching.

Waddell's Tess always seems to have stronger moral fiber than Milburn's Angel, even though adapter Ted Whitehead and director Ian Sharp have tried to make him as appealing as you can possibly make a guy who behaves like a heel at the worst possible times.

This is a gorgeous production from London Weekend Television and ought to be in the ratings big leagues like A&E's ``Pride & Prejudice'' and ``Ivanhoe'' were in past seasons.