The superb acting of Christopher Eccleston as the doomed Jude and Kate Winslet as his bewitching cousin Sue is the main plus point of this carefully-made British film of Thomas Hardy's tragic novel Jude the Obscure. It's nowhere near as good as those other Hardy retellings - Roman Polanski's Tess or John Schlesinger's Far From the Madding Crowd - but the novel's depressing spirit is well captured by director Michael Winterbottom. June Whitfield is nicely cast against type as Jude's aunt. (TM/ DW)

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