Favourite Scenes


My favourite scene in the whole movie has to be when Tess tells Angel it's too late after he returns. The scene makes me cry every time I watch it. Justine Waddell is amazing and I love what the script writer did with that whole scene (in Hardy's book the scene is so much shorter).

Are there any scenes that you wish they had included from the book?

The Angel/Tess scene where he's sleep walking is one of my favourite parts of the book and I'm surprised that both the Polanski version and this version exclude it.

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I ove the sleep walking bit too, and the bit when she puts those poor birds out of their misery. I wish they kept those bits in, Justine would have had a challange with those!

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One of my favorites is when Angel returns to the dairy farm (the beginning of part two) and watches Tess from the doorway, her profile (and she doesn't realize that he's there), just the look of love on his face as he observes her incandescent beauty and purity of spirit.

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"I ove the sleep walking bit too, and the bit when she puts those poor birds out of their misery. I wish they kept those bits in, Justine would have had a challange with those!"

The part with the birds is so poigant. I love the way it's written in the book. It shows so much of Tess' self sacrificing nature. I wish they would have done the ending scene with Angel and Tess' sister. My favorite Part of the book is when she Baptizes her baby. I cry every time I read it. I know they left that in the movie but it's not as powerful.




"Dig the grave both wide and deep,
For I am sick, and fain would sleep!"

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My favorite Part of the book is when she Baptizes her baby. I cry every time I read it. I know they left that in the movie but it's not as powerful.
I thought it worked in it's own way in this version, however, you're quite right, that scene in the book is extremely powerful - it always gets to me as well!

I love the sleep walking bit too, and the bit when she puts those poor birds out of their misery. I wish they kept those bits in, Justine would have had a challange with those!
Agreed! I was really looking forward to those scenes, sadly they've not been included!

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That is one of my favorite parts too!!

Your heart is breaking for them. On one hand your like, "just hug him already" and on the other, "where the hell have you been?".

I also loved the scene by the river...when Angel carries the other women across the river, and when it's her turn, Tess tries to find another way across. I love that part. She looked so at home in his arms.

And then the part when he comes up behind her while she's in the (I want to say) barn (not sure). And he says something like "tell me you love me". It went something like that.

I saw this movie, probably four or five years ago. I had been searching for it forever. I finally found it about a year ago and I was so excited!!

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It is well worth waiting for. I have it on VHS and plan to purchase the DVD, along with "The Woman In White" which also stars Justine Waddell.

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My favorite scene (although the whole part with Tess arriving at the dairy farm up until the wedding is all so wonderful!!!) is when Angel carries Tess over the flooding waters and tells her: "you know I did the first 2 parts of this just to do the third (or something like that)."

Oliver Milburn and Justine Waddell have such amazing chemistry. Their entire courtship at the dairy farm was so wonderfully done......absolutely romantic. It makes me want to swoon whenever I watch it! I have to rewind the dvd player whenever I get to this part!

"I do not want to possess you. I wish to marry you because I love you." - John Thornton

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My favorite scene is right before Tess kills Alec. Alec professes his love for Tess, and how he would have never left her like Angel did. Call me strange but it gave me his point of veiw, and i kinda sided with him.

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i haven't seen the film (yet) but i was like that for nearly the whole of the book. it was weird because i caught myself defending alec for tess' rape, which is a rather odd position to take.

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Hmm...I liked the scene where Tess tells off her mother when she's berating Tess for not getting Alec to marry her. That part sticks out for me a lot.

Another great scene is the "It's too late" scene. Very powerful.

And also the "crossing the water" scene.

Some of the parts I wished they had kept in were the "killing the pheasents scene" and the "church" scene where Alec once again tries to talk her into living with him. Other than that...I was happy they kept to the book so faithfully.

Or...I just shoot you - "baby."
- Special Agent Dana Scully

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I liked the scene where Tess was trying really hard to whistle to the birds.

Also the scene where Angel is watching Tess as she (in slow-mo) gets up from milking, and we see Angel's eyes follow her form as she walks over to the next cow. And the scene where Angel carries Tess over the water. So romantic.

The most powerfully moving scenes for me, were the "It's too late" scene, and the scene where she argues with Alec before stabbing him.

Also moving was the scene where she tells her mother "I was just a child! Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men?", a very moving and justified scene of one youth's loss of innocence and rough entry into womanhood.

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars." --Brian Littrell

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The "It's too late" is my favorite scene too. It's such a complicated scene, and Justine completely nails it. The actors have such great chemistry there. I could really pull for them. I have to say the scene after that with tess and jason Flemyng was great too. I have to say i didn't like Flemyng's performance; it was too over-the-top but it worked in that last scene.

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I don't understand why so many people like the "It's too late" scene so much. I really don't imagine why the script writer felt the need to make it longer. It seems pointless. In the book it's a very powerful scene and it looks more real, more true to the characters. In the movie, the whole scene seems to be dragging for about 5 minutes and i was thinking "Why would the script writer choose to do this?" I can understand him being wrong, but then why didn't the director do something about it or the editor. They didn't help the actors very much. Justine just keeps looking up (I counted at least 3 times; I understand you want to show she's thinking about Alec not coming down the stairs or something, but once is enough, really), moving her head as if in denial of something and looking at him without explaining why it is too late. There are too many shots of her in these 3 stances. The scene is too long. Only in the last minute or so it becomes as powerful as it should be, when she says "I hate him now". I know that probably every user on this board will jump at my throat for what I've said, but I would like to hear the reason you think this scene is so great (and in more than one sentence, if possible).
Now regarding my favourite scene(s)... First, i would like to say that I think Justine's acting feels more at home in the less intense scenes (by intense I mean when she doesn't have to argue or shout); for example at the may dance, when Prince dies or in the end, when she says "Have they come for me?" and so on.

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I totally agree ReganRebecca (wow, 4 years later), that the "its too late" scene is the most powerful.

I enjoyed the whole movie up until that point but nothing moved me as profoundly as I'd expected it to, as I'd just read the book and had very high expectations of the adaption. But holy cow, like another person on here said, Justine Waddell totally nailed that scene. That's some stellar acting right there.

A scene from the book I wish they'd left in: when Angel and Tess got up early together before dawn to milk the cows, and it was just the two of them and they felt like the only two people in the world, like Adam and Eve. There were similar scenes of them together on the farm, but if the director had really paid attention to a detailed, beautiful version of that depiction (complete with the dew and the soft lighting from the rising sun), I think the movie would have benefited from it. I think Angel and Tess's romance moved a little too fast for my liking.



...rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell...

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Well you're all in luck, people. The 2008 version has all these scenes that were left out in this 1998 version.

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Yes I agree "It's too late" part is my favourite part also. So haunting.

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My fav scenes:

1) Angel watching Tess when she's milking and she not knowing he's there. The love in his eyes is divine.

2) When Tess tells Angel it's too late. Oh my word, that tore my heart out.

3) When Tess cries at her mother: "Why did you not tell me there was danger in men?!" That line was emotional and powerful and it was so sad.

4) At the end, when Tess is arguing with Alec before she kills him. She mentions Angel: "And I have lost him again because of you!" (something like that), it makes me cry every time. So beautiful, so gut-wrenching.

5) At the very end when Tess wakes up and asks Angel: "Have they come for me?" That broke my soul, seriously, I was sobbing so much I couldn't breathe properly.

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