seattleTimesCo

The Seattle Times Company---Sunday, September 13, 1998

'Tess' on TV: Fine miniseries revisits Hardy's tragic heroine

By Kay McFadden , Seattle Time television critic

Is the Jane Austen craze finally over? Ye gods, let's hope so. Variations that began with the sprightly 1995 film "Clueless" have devolved to this year's junky best seller "Bridget Jones's Diary," a sign Austen should be left fallow until about 2090.

Fortunately, relief is at hand for viewers seeking an antidote to the same old happy ending with a rich fiance and nice silverware. Tonight and tomorrow from 10 to midnight, A&E debuts its presentation of Thomas Hardy's grim "Tess of the D'Urbervilles."

Culturally speaking, the timing is spot on. Austen suited the prosperous climate of our last few years and the accompanying reversion to conservative social beliefs. However, as recently worried investors may discover, there's nothing like Thomas Hardy when you're in a bear market sort of mood.

Many of us remember Hardy from high school as a stone cold drag. And it's true his characters have the worst luck, whether it's their sheep plummeting off a cliff, or being doomed to wander the countryside painted red. But what frustrates or bores us at 17 - the notion that choices dwindle as happenstance intervenes - can become riveting material later in life.

A&E, which has teamed with English producers in the past to create excellent versions of "Pride and Prejudice" and "Tom Jones," does not compromise and rarely disappoints with its latest Brit-lit tackle.

That's not easy, because Hardy's a challenge to adapt. His rural characters are eloquent but limited in vocabulary, and an omniscient narrator must paint what's in their hearts and heads as well as observe the scene at large. This technique can become hokey and mood-breaking on the screen, and must be used sparingly.

All the more reason, then, to cast your main character with care. Happily, English actress Justine Waddell makes a fine Tess, conveying the dismal undoing of a resolute idealist with emotional finesse and ethereal charm.

Tess is the nonpareil Hardy hero, too true to her heart to be a moral pragmatist and too unworldly to learn pretense. She is born with the ingredients for disaster: in this case, a beautiful face, feckless parents and her naive belief that goodness and faith are sufficient armor.

As the occasional narrator tells us, "A chance encounter. A chance remark. Yet such things determine our fate." In 16-year-old Tess' case, it is the discovery that her family, the Durbeyfields, are descendants of a great and ancient local clan called the D'Urbervilles. She subsequently is sent by her ambitious mother to find fortune with a rich surviving branch.

The landed-gentry cad has become such a cliche, it's a surprise to recall that Tess' lustful cousin Alec D'Urberville is more than he seems. Actor Jason Flemyng's finely tuned portrayal enables us to see Alec as Tess does: a man intimidating, brutal, yet complex and attractive enough to ultimately have his way.

Of course, the woman pays the price. This is 19th-century England. Yet there's much more to the story than an out-of-wedlock baby, for the real struggle is between Tess' insistence on truthfulness and the world's willingness to wink.

It's also more complicated than a case of nice-girl-meets-nasty-influence. Hardy gives Tess another chance at happiness, only to remind us that there's not much to be said for the moral hypocrisy of so-called good people.

Going to work at a dairy farm, Tess encounters a well-heeled young minister's son, Angel Clare. He woos her and she turns him down, alluding to a problematic past. Eventually, however, she succumbs to her heart and trusts in her future husband's support.

Their wedding night is one of the film's most stunning scenes. If Tess' cousin Alec is bad, then what do we call the noble young man who recoils from her confession - after detailing his own past transgressions?

Scoundrels can only wound; it's betrayal by those we love that has the power to destroy. "I do forgive you, but you're not the woman I loved," says Angel, to which her agonized response is, "I thought you loved me, for myself."

In Tess' subsequent denouement, there is plenty of fodder for discussion about the path not taken. The practical side of us will wonder why she can't accept life with a contrite, reformed Alec; the romantic side will understand her final decision even as we dread the outcome.

"Tess of the D'Urbervilles" is a collaboration between A&E and London Weekend Television, and constitutes one of A&E's more ambitious projects to date.Capturing Hardy isn't just a matter of beautiful cinematography or careful writing (though the movie has those). Unlike the loquacious creations of Austen and Fielding, his work must be delicately eased onto the screen.

A few missteps are made. The pacing occasionally drags, while Oliver Milburn's portrayal of Angel is a bit too innocent. And there are times when one wishes the third-person narration could have been cut.

But not altogether, for then we would be left without Hardy's simple, sharp-toothed epitaph: "Justice was done. Mankind in time-honored way had finished its sport with Tess."