The Mayor of Casterbridge (2003) — A 21st Century Story
This year has seemed like a personal trainwreck from a great number of perspectives — and one of the first things it brings to mind is Michael Henchard. Like Thomas Hardy’s tragic mayor I’ve felt connections, career, finances, and slim self-esteem whip away from me in devastating succession. The reason I keep linking myself, a trans woman in 2023, to this gruff, masculine figure from a 19th century novel is not just because the original work is an insightful page turner. It’s largely, indeed, because of the remarkable 2003 adaptation — one as compelling as its source because of how vividly and succinctly it retells the tale.
In some ways it’s little surprise that the adaptation has been forgotten, as it is hardly a story with much modern appeal. The protagonist is a powerful middle-aged man who creates havoc in the lives of many people close to him, not least himself, because of his immense pride and temper. Henchard might not seem, then, like a natural target for sympathy, but there’s complexity beneath the character’s unappealing veneer that makes it a tale worthy of today. The man is almost childlike in his emotions, and as they tear his life apart he starts to appear a victim of the human tendency to self-destruct.
One of the character’s greatest wounds is shame. At the start he seems to cause perhaps his greatest as a result of his unreasonable anger at his lot in life. Henchard, in a drunken and disillusioned state, promptly sells his wife, Susan, at a fair. This leads to a penitent abstinence from alcohol, becoming a Dorset mayor, and an offscreen period of apparent prosperity. But the return of his long-gone wife leads to shame once more infesting the character and his behaviour. It’s his wretchedness, rather than any material change, that begins the tragedy in earnest, and this psychological foundation for the drama makes for a distinctly modern tale.
Ciaran Hinds is one of the highlights of this adaptation as the titular character, portraying his complexities with subtlety and pathos. There are so many memorable scenes thanks to Hinds’ vivid portrayal of the character’s struggles, but one of the most crucial to the plot happens very early on. Susan turns up at Casterbridge and makes herself known to him — and when this happens, the most important thing he wants to get is her forgiveness. The desperation of this often gruff, commanding man is performed with such a weight that you feel how much it bears on Henchard’s soul, and gives a clear look at the wounds that drag him to a tragic doom.
Hardy’s work is famously conscious of gender, however, and this plays into the impact of societal shame and judgement with a modern eye. Henchard’s behaviour has an impact on the reputations of a whole host of people around him — and the women more than most. An old romantic interest Lucetta is most harmed, driven to illness and death by the social pressure the reveal of their secret liaison brings. Henchard, however, does not have to fear the scorn of the community despite a flurry of reputation-ruining behaviours, and is given opportunity after opportunity to change his life. Again, the man does not seem worthy of pity, yet his own failure to combat his mind makes for a pitiable and remarkably human arc.
The end which the man finds himself at is quite fearful for someone like myself, equally prone to mindless self-destruction. There are a multitude of failures throughout such as debt, being superseded, bankruptcy, being widowed, rejection by his daughter — and his own paranoid mind above all. Henchard ultimately meets a lonely death even if it’s not clear why he so suddenly dies, only that it feels like some sort of giving in. He leaves alongside his body a will that wishes solely for him to be totally forgotten by the world. The real tragedy is that this wish is not shared: his body is wept over by his daughter and even pseudo-enemy Farfrae, the apparent usurper of his position in Casterbridge.
Hind’s raw, emotionally charged performance, and the speed with which this adaptation moves along, makes this tale more clearly of a person spinning out of control. Both the original text and the film suggest, too, that the mayor is not merely some emotionally immature brute but someone struggling with deep mental health issues. When he first meets his knowledgable, young successor Farfrae he mentions sometimes experiencing moods that are like “the blackness of hell”, and his youthful friend has no understanding of what this feels like. A viewer who has experienced such unpleasantness themselves will likely understand the depths of the story that this small scene, originated by Hardy, suggests. It’s a tale of mental health, essentially, and one that’s unsettling because of how little understanding and support seem to have progressed since the 19th century. Henchard is man who feels totally cut off from the wider, more gently flowing current of life, and it’s all too easy in the lonely 21st century to end up the same.
The other major issue in Henchard’s life is alcohol, a clear crutch for the despair he feels. The story begins with him drinking copious amounts of it, and then swearing off drink for 21 years. However, as his position in society starts to collapse, and he reaches his 21 year limit, he decides to start heavily drinking once again. It seems to be the case that he’s not alcohol dependent in the strictest sense, yet the aspects of his personality which he struggles to hide come rushing to the fore with the influence of booze. This understanding of the interplay between wellbeing and booze grounds the story in harsh reality that would feel familiar in 21st century social realism.
2003’s take on the tale feels like the definitive screen one because it is an intensely cinematic experience. Hardy has been criticised for filling ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ with event after event, but not only does it fit with the unravelling of a life but also makes for highly watchable entertainment. It’s hard to imagine even those uninterested in period dramas not being swept along, especially with the contribution of an epic, melancholy score that takes everything to its inevitable conclusion. A new adaptation would struggle to find stronger actors, or to do more justice to a tale already told with such loyalty to the text’s tone and themes.
The tragedy of the tale is that Henchard’s failures were never final, and that he destroyed himself whilst rejecting every chance at redemption. Perhaps in an era where “cancel culture” is a supposed obstacle it’s a pertinent message: that we can all lose status, but total destruction only comes from a failure to reckon with ourselves. But it’s also a story that’s immensely insightful into the timeless nature of human behaviour. It’s call to empathy for ourselves and others, and in a hyper-individualised world feels more necessary than ever.
