One has to be in a particular frame of mind to endure Thomas Hardy. Whether it be in novel or film form; the mind, your mind, needs to come up for air at the end of the segment you have just absorbed.
However, I have to say...wow! Absolutely delightfully filmed and it's about time since the Polanski version don't you think?
The setting; the dialogue, beautifully similar to the novel; the costume and the gothic grandeur of the D'uberville estate...wonderful.

The rape scene filmed for the first time...still, in my opinion, too subtle and vague, yet part of me also says, 'Yes, just right'...indeed we endure the confusion Tess does beneath the ancient woodland, the 'oldest chase' in the country.
Ancestory and the past consume her and finally she pays the ultimate price for trying to become part of it.

The strawberry scene evoked the innocence of her sexuality as well as the whistling scene, ironically with the stable door bolted between her and Alec.
What is it Hardy wants us to feel?
Her guilt?
Her ardour for independence?
Her strife?
Her parents' utter ignorance and foolhardiness?

It is the latter who are to blame for her downfall and what a modern day icon Hardy should be.
This is when I know Christmas is coming and the hard frost is a moment away; the Antiques Roadshow and the Sunday night costume drama!
I'm actually going to read it all over again...and then Jude...but...you really have to be mentally stable to survive that novel...so maybe Under The Greenwood Tree instead! Or Far from The Madding Crowd...or...