Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2008)

Gemma Arterton (James Bond: Quantum of Solace), Eddie Redmayne (The Other Boleyn Girl) and Hans Matheson (The Tudors) star in this passionate, sensual and very modern version of Thomas Hardy's infamous, groundbreaking novel. Unstintingly gorgeous and romantic, this new BBC adaptation is an intense, moving and provocative depiction of class envy, seduction, love and betrayal in late 19th-century rural Wessex.

Episode 1 - John Durbeyfield, a ‘haggler' and a drunk, is weaving his way one afternoon towards the pub when he meets the village priest, Parson Tringham. The priest informs him that his family have distinguished ancestry. They are descended from the d'Urbervilles, a wealthy, though now extinct, clan.
John Durbeyfield's daughter, the beautiful Tess is dancing along with the other village girls at the May Day parade. There she spies a handsome young stranger joining in the dance, but he doesn't seem to notice her. His name is Angel Clare, a parson's son.
John and his wife Joan have learnt that a woman called d'Urberville lives not too far away. They want to send Tess over there to ‘claim kin'. Tess is reluctant, but when the family horse is injured in an accident and has to be shot, she realises that for the family's sake she will have to go.
She meets Alec d'Urberville, a good-looking, suave and apparently charming man, who lives in the biggest house Tess has ever seen, with his mother. He does not permit her to meet his mother yet. When Tess has left, Alec forges a letter, pretending it is from Mrs d'Urberville, offering her a job on their estate. Tess accepts.
Alec and his mother are not real d'Urbervilles. Alec's late father bought the title with his great wealth made from manufacturing chocolate. Tess at last meets the blind and daunting Mrs d'Urberville, and works on the estate under the wary supervision of the bailiff Groby.
Alec begins to seduce Tess, showering her with attention and gifts and assuring her that her family will want for nothing. Eventually the inevitable happens. Offering to ride her home after a village fair, he gets deliberately lost, tells her to sleep while he finds help, but returns and rapes her.
Tess returns home in shame and confusion. A year has passed since the May Day dance. Now Tess can only watch the dancing girls from afar, holding a tiny baby boy in her arms.

Episode 2 - The baby is mortally ill. Because Tess's father refuses to let him be baptised in a church, she is forced to perform the ceremony herself, calling him ‘Sorrow'. The baby dies. Tess pleads with Parson Tringham to allow the baby to be buried in the churchyard, but the parson says he cannot permit this, so Tess digs a small grave for Sorrow in a field next to the church, on unconsecrated ground.
Tess leaves home and finds work at a dairy farm, a happy and sun-filled place, presided over by the jovial Mr Crick. Tess becomes immediate friends with three dairy girls, Marion, Izzy and Retty. The girls are totally besotted with an educated young man who is on the farm learning how to become a gentleman farmer. His name is Angel Clare. Tess instantly recognises him.
Over a hot summer, Tess and Angel fall in love. Angel is unwavering in his wish to marry Tess, and travels home to tell his parents of his intentions. They do not approve as he is informally betrothed to a prim and
proper local girl, Mercy Chant. But Mr Clare, a deeply religious but tolerant man, concedes that the decision whom Angel should marry must be Angel's alone. Briefly, at the parsonage, Angel has caught a glimpse of Alec d'Urberville, who is taking religious instruction from Mr Clare after the death of his mother.
Angel rushes back to the farm to propose to Tess. She is torn between ecstasy and fear as she struggles with her strong love for Angel and a sense of guilt and unworthiness. Can she tell him about her past, her relationship with Alec, her dead baby? She eventually succumbs to his passionate entreaties and accepts his hand. The girls are jealous of course, but pleased for her. Retty seems to be more distressed than the others.
On a trip to town to choose her wedding dress, Tess encounters Alec's bailiff, Groby. He calls her a whore to her face. Not knowing who he is, Angel knocks the man to the ground. Tess now decides that she must reveal all to Angel, before they get married. She writes him a letter on the night before the wedding and puts it under his door.
The next morning, she is relieved to see that Angel appears to be completely unaffected by her confession. But when she goes to his room to fetch something she sees that the letter has slipped under a rug. It hasn't been opened. She tries to tell Angel everything verbally, but he will not hear about anything now; they have a wedding to get to...
Tess burns the letter.

Episode 3 - A heartbroken Retty does not attend the wedding. As a small but joyful ceremony takes place, she tries to drown herself. Tess and Angel leave for their honeymoon, to be spent at an old mansion once owned by the ancient d'Urberville family.
What they hoped would be a romantic evening is interrupted and darkened by news of Retty's attempted suicide. A suddenly troubled Angel decides it is time for them to make known their former trangressions to each other. Solemnly he informs Tess of a wrongdoing in his past and is surprised when she readily forgives him and seems almost pleased with the confession. Tess has misjudged the situation. She thinks that if she forgives him he will forgive her. So she tells him about Alec d'Urberville -
the whole story... Angel is appalled.
He tells Tess that she is no longer the woman he loved. They will remain married but must part. Both go home to their respective families. To the fury of her mother and father, Tess reveals all that has happened. Angel cannot be so honest with his own parents. He says that he and Tess have merely separated for a while and that he is going to Brazil to set up a farm there.
On his journey from home Angel meets Izzy, Tess's friend. He asks Izzy if she will accompany him on his new adventure, but when she tells him that nobody could love him more than Tess, he acknowledges the folly of his request and sets off for Brazil on his own.
Unable to stand being at home any longer, Tess sets out for work over the winter. She finds a job on a bleak farm run by Groby, the cruel bailiff, but at least she has comfort in the companionship of her two friends, Izzy and Marion. Izzy persuades her to swallow her pride and seek out Angel's parents for help. Tess goes to Angel's village, but her nerve fails her when she overhears Angel's brothers discussing his ill-advised marriage and she runs away.
On her journey back to the farm, she hears someone preaching in a tent and is horrified to discover that the preacher is Alec d'Urberville. Alec tells her that he has found God and is a changed man. She responds by informing him that she has had a child and that the child is now dead. She says that they must never see each other again.
But, inflamed by meeting her again and by her beauty, Alec turns up at Groby's farm and proposes marriage. Tess now reveals to Alec that she is married already, to a man she loves who is far far away. Alec remains sceptical, and is determined to have her. In desperation, Tess at last writes to Angel, begging him to come and rescue her from a terrible fate. But Angel is in Brazil, dreadfully ill and close to death...Episode 4
Through a cruelly bitter winter, Tess continues to work on the farm. Alec, who seems to have replaced any religious fervour he once had with a passion for Tess alone, continues to plague her with his relentless attention.
Tess's younger sister Liza-Lu arrives at the farm to report that their father is dying. Tess and her sister hurry home. John Durbeyfield dies and is buried. The family are turned out of their house. They travel to the village once owned by the blighted d'Ubervilles with all the possessions they can carry. Tess writes an angry letter to Angel. She cannot forgive him now for ignoring her as he has. But for all we know,
Angel is dead.
Alec follows the Durbeyfields. Unable to find lodgings, they have encamped in the local churchyard. Alec finds Tess in the church, looking at the crypt of her ancestors, wishing she were dead like them. He tells her that he has offered the family support; he will give them a home. She now has no choice but to go with him and be his.
In Mr Clare's church, a ghostly frail young man turns up. It is Angel Clare... Angel's parents show him letters. The first is the angry one. The next is one from Izzy at the farm, begging him to find Tess before it is too late. Angel sets out to find her, to save her. He goes to the farm. He visits her former home. Finally he arrives at the house still owned by Alec d'Urberville, where Alec is allowing the Durbeyfields to work and stay. But there is no sign of Alec, or Tess.
Liza-Lu lets Angel know that Tess is in Sandbourne, a seaside town. There he sees her at last, in a boarding house. She is still staggeringly beautiful, but a changed woman, in rich clothes. She says that Alec has won her back. He leaves in a daze.
Wildly distraught now, Tess stabs Alec with a bread knife and kills him. She runs in search of Angel and finds him at the station, where she confesses to what she has done.
Knowing that they will now be pursued, they escape across the countryside. For a short happy time in an empty lodging house, they enjoy what could have been, reminiscing and making love. But they are discovered and have to keep running.
Their journey finishes at Stonehenge. Somehow Tess knows it is all over. She has one last instruction for Angel: he must marry her sister, Liza-Lu. They sleep overnight, and at dawn the police arrive. Tess goes willingly, knowing she has known happiness.
As Tess faces execution, she remembers the May Dance and how it might have been so different - she and Angel dancing and falling in love there and then. From a distance Angel and Liza-Lu watch the black flag flying over the prison, a sign that Tess has been hanged for murder.

"[Gemma Arterton is] fabulous as Tess: passionate, moody, enigmatic, naive, strong, determined, earthy. The BBC's first ever stab at Tess is a delight"  - Guardian

Written by Thomas Hardy, David Nicholls
Directed by David Blair
Produced by David Snodin
Executive Produced by Rebecca Eaton, Kate Harwood
Original Music by Robert Lane
Cinematography by Wojciech Szepel
Film Editing by Pia Di Ciaula

David Nicholls was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for Best Screenplay for his adaptation of Blake Morrison's memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father?

Gemma Arterton graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art last year, and made her film debut in Stephen Poliakoff's Capturing Mary, before being cast in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

• Behind the scenes of Tess