The BBC's Wide Sargasso Sea (2006) A Brief Review

The BBC's 2006 version of Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea bring impressive accuracy both in plot and mood to the screen. Though the movie does not cover the first part of the book where Antoinette is growing up, but instead focuses on the arrival of Rochester to the West Indies but tell story of Antoinette and Rochester so accurately it is frequently line-for-line with the novel. The movie is also clearly framed with an insane Antoinette leaving the viewer curious about the cause of her insanity.

The most striking feature of the film version of Wide Sargasso Sea is the success with which the director captured the mood of the novel by filming a claustrophobic tropical environment. Since the novel plays with the idea that the hum of insects, heat, humidity, and think vegetation of the tropics can create a sort of claustrophobia which is bad for a person's mental state. This is originally developed with Rochester who forms an immediately negative impression of the tropics after being taken ill and spending time bedridden.

The film is successful at making Antoinette seem particularly sympathetic while bringing Jean Rhys' novel to life in an accurate way. The difficulty of classifying the writing of Jean Rhys has sometimes hinged on the extent to which an understanding of the Caribbean is necessary in order to appreciate her novels. While it is not entirely necessary, the film version demonstrates that the tropical environment is a crucial part of Rhys' prose in the novel which may be pissed by readers unfamiliar with the landscape. It is one thing to complain about the incessant buzzing of insects, but another thing to hear it is a consistent background noise which isn't regularly mentioned.