Dune and the Trouble with Adapting Lady Jessica

One of the many visually striking scenes in Dune (2021) happens in the first act. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) regard each other through a thick coat of grey mist, the mother having just trapped her son in a life-or-death situation. Neither of them is seeing the other clearly on both a literal and figurative level.

It is also a scene that does not exist in the Dune book.

If you'd like to read Frank Herbert's entire Dune Saga, order the set here.

Of course, if things are altered in adaptation from page to screen, it does not make the end result in an automatic failure; in fact, it can be the opposite. Ted Tally himself, who won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), spoke on adaptation: "Adapting a novel into a screenplay is just like writing an original screenplay. The two forms are as different as an apple and an orange. Though both may be fruits, and both grow on trees, they are totally different in taste, color, and texture.”

Ultimately, what matters is not how faithful a screenplay is to its source material, but how accomplished it is in its storytelling. Unfortunately, the story that Dune (2021) is trying to tell with the character of Lady Jessica pales in comparison to her book counterpart, written by Frank Herbert in his 1965 novel of the same name. In adapting Lady Jessica, Dune once again raises questions about the prioritization of male characters over female characters and the ongoing issue of portraying mother figures in recent blockbusters.

The Beginning of the Story

In the opening chapter of the Dune novel, Lady Jessica awakens her fifteen-year-old son Paul in the dead of night and brings him to Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam (portrayed in the film by Charlotte Rampling). She was Lady Jessica’s teacher at the Bene Gesserit school, the Bene Gesserit is an all-female organization that possesses superhuman abilities (essentially female Jedi).

The Reverend Mother’s intentions are revealed when she gets Paul to partake in the ‘Gom Jabbar’ test; Paul must keep his hand inside a box where he will experience tremendous burning pain. If he doesn’t, he will die. The test is to determine whether a person with Bene Gesserit abilities can control their animal impulses and are worthy enough to wield their powers. All Bene Gesserit members are put through this test, including Lady Jessica, and now it is Paul’s turn.

Paul manages to pass the test, but what is revealed to readers is that he is one of the very few males to do so. This could mean that he is the ‘Kwisatz Haderach’, a superbeing capable of looking into the past, present, and future. The Bene Gesserit have spent centuries carefully crossing bloodlines in the hopes of creating this person, but what makes it all the more interesting is that Paul is not meant to be the ‘Kwisatz Haderach’—in fact, he was meant to be a girl, and his son was meant to be this being. Jessica went against the orders of the Bene Gesserit to birth a daughter (members of the organization can decide the genders of their children), and now the stage has been set for our story is Paul the Kwisatz Haderach? What will happen to him and his mother if he is, or isn’t?

It’s a fascinating way to open a science fiction novel. Considering all of the books and films similar in the genre that came before and after this novel, the call to adventure on a hero’s journey is usually offered to the protagonist by a male character. Gandalf tells Bilbo Baggins that he is looking for someone to share in an adventure in The Hobbit. Harry is dropped off at the Dursleys by Dumbledore and is then picked up by Hagrid to go to Hogwarts in Harry Potter. Mr. Tumnus finds the Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia. Obi-Wan Kenobi gives Luke Skywalker his lightsaber and offers to train him in the ways of the force in Star Wars. Robert Baratheon asks Ned Stark to become the Hand of the King in Game of Thrones. How fitting is it then, in a book series that is known for being the ‘anti-hero’s journey’, that the people who alert Paul to the path he is about to embark on are women?

The problem with this scene in the 2021 film adaptation of Dune is not necessarily that it happens at about the thirty-minute mark instead of it being the opening, but how it chooses to frame Jessica’s character. In the Dune novel, before the Reverend Mother tests Paul, she berates Jessica over not having a daughter with her partner, Duke Leto Atreides:

“You were told to bear only daughters to the Atreides.”

“It meant so much to him,” Jessica pleaded.

“And you in your pride thought you could produce the Kwisatz Haderach!”

Jessica lifted her chin. “I sensed the possibility.”

“You thought only of your Duke’s desire for a son,” the old woman snapped (page 24).

This opening just sets up Jessica’s character so well. A woman, raised in an organization where emotions are suppressed and their individual needs do not count, chooses to disobey them out of love and her self-belief in being capable of producing this prophesized being. Readers are left wondering whether Jessica will remain a cog in the Bene Gesserit scheme or (for better or for worse) become her own woman with her own agency?

Changes in Dune's Opening

However, screenwriters Eric Roth, Jon Spaihts, and Denis Villeneuve, present Jessica in a more regressive manner. You can see this portrayal by purchasing Dune (2021) on Blu-ray.

Before Paul meets the Reverend Mother, Jessica explains that the Reverend Mother wants to know about the dreams he’s been having recently. “How does she know about my dreams?” Paul asks, shocked. Jessica replies by looking at him guiltily. Then, when Jessica asks the character Dr. Yueh to inspect Paul before meeting the Reverend Mother, Yueh warns Paul: “Bene Gesserit claims to serve the greater good. But with all due respect to your mother, they also serve their own agenda.” Here we are being deprived of Jessica’s point of view and are only seeing her in a negative light from male perspectives.

Director and co-writer Denis Villeneuve seems to confirm this interpretation, explaining in a scene breakdown to Vanity Fair:

“Paul’s character is understanding that first he has been trapped, but more importantly, he has been trapped by his own mother. That will create a tension that will go through the whole movie after (8mins 29sec).”

Of course, Paul has every reason to have this reaction to his mother, and in the novel when he sees her after enduring the test he does “look at her like she were a stranger (page 26).” However, Paul’s biggest takeaway from this whole ordeal was the Reverend Mother’s warning about the fate of Paul’s father, Duke Leto Atreides (played by Oscar Isaac in the film) if the family were to travel to Arrakis. Paul takes the Reverend Mother’s words seriously, so the readers are meant to as well. At one point, Paul confronts his father about this:

“Did the Reverend Mother warn you?” Paul blurted.

The Duke responds, in a somewhat ignorant manner;

“Hawat tells me she frightened you with warnings about Arrakis,” the Duke said. “Don’t let a woman’s fears cloud your mind. No woman wants her loved ones endangered. The hand behind those warnings was your mother’s. Take this as a sign of her love for us (page 45).”

This is all erased and the narrative is focused solely on Jessica deceiving Paul. The problem with this is that there are so many fantasy and science fiction scenes that set up male heroes and their male role models in a positive way, that it is frustrating that the one time it’s a woman, it is portrayed as harmful.

The first scene there is between Paul and Jessica in the film has the same vibe as the ‘Gom Jabbar’ scene. After Jessica gets Paul to practice using ‘the Voice’ (a Bene Gesserit power), Jessica observes him. “You look tired. More dreams?” she asks. “No,” Paul says, avoiding eye contact. The audience knows otherwise, having just witnessed one of Paul’s many dreams of Chani, a Fremen woman (‘Fremen’ being the indigenous people of Arrakis). A few scenes later, Paul divulges his dreams to Duncan Idaho (Jason Mamoa), a soldier for House Atreides. This is the precursor for the audience’s suspicions of Jessica. Why would Paul tell this man but not his own mother? This question, obviously, is answered later on.

It is clear to see how Villeneuve is setting up Jessica’s character arc in his own way; audiences are not sure where her true allegiances lie and if she will protect Paul when the time comes. Duke Leto asks her as much, saying “Will you protect Paul? I’m not asking his mother, I’m asking the Bene Gesserit,” to which she doesn’t answer. This adaptation choice is that it is taking a complex female character from the source material and making her inherently suspicious, having to prove herself to win Paul’s (and therefore the audience’s) trust. This is an unfair bias that is not given to any male characters in Villeneuve’s adaptation, especially Duke Leto. Where flaws have been highlighted or inserted for Lady Jessica, they have been sliced away from her partner. There is no mention of the Duke having bought Jessica from the Bene Gesserit for his own political gain.

The Relationship with the Fremen

The screenwriters also pass over Duke Leto’s complicity in exploiting the Fremen people for his family’s gain. In Frank Herbert's novel Dune, the Bene Gesserit have the ‘Missionaria Protectiva’, a special branch that plants prophecies in indigenous cultures across planets so that when they create the ‘Kwisatz Haderach’, they will be more willing to follow his rule. In the novel, Leto tells Paul: “That film clip there—they [the Fremen] call you “Mahdi”- “Lisan al-Gaib”- as a last resort, you might capitalize on that (page 113).”

In the film, however, only Jessica is complicit in this. When Paul questions what the Fremen people were shouting at him when they arrived on Arrakis, Jessica coolly explains that they were saying Lisan al-Gaib, which means Messiah, meaning that the Missionaria Protectiva had been at work here. Seeing the disgust on Paul’s face, Jessica defends, “These people have been waiting for centuries. They see you, they see the signs.” Unconvinced, Paul retorts, “They see what they’ve been told to see.”

Not to say that Jessica doesn’t exploit the Fremen also; when she meets her maid Shadout Mapes and when she joins the Fremen people after Duke Leto’s death, she uses their beliefs as a way of manipulating them. However, if she does not take this route, there is a possibility that Paul, herself, and her unborn child (she is a few weeks pregnant) will be killed.

It is not a black-and-white situation, so it is not fair that she shoulders the blame for this entirely and not Leto also.

A scene that belonged to Jessica in the novel but was instead given to someone else in the film was the date palm scene, where Paul questions the morals of giving so much water to trees when there are people dying of dehydration. In the first book of the Dune series, is a discussion that takes place between Jessica and Dr. Yueh, and there are several more instances where Jessica reflects on the unjust way water is distributed on Arrakis. In one instance, when Jessica discovers a secret garden in her new home, she narrates:

Water everywhere in this room- on a planet where water was the most precious juice of life. Water being wasted so conspicuously that it shocked her to inner stillness (page 77).

It is understandable that Villeneuve would want to transfer character-defining moments to the film’s protagonist rather than to supporting characters, but if that is the case then why didn’t Villeneuve also give Paul the moment in the novel where Duke Leto initiates saving the workers over the resource (spice Melange) that they are farming, or any other honorable action Duke Leto takes? These alterations can be seen by purchasing Dune on Prime Video.

The Duke and Lady Jessica's Relationship

As well as Jessica’s perspective being erased for most of the film, one of the topics most personal to her in the novel was also taken; the fact that she is Duke Leto’s concubine and not his wife. Despite Jessica being the mother of his child and him being in love with her, the Duke will not marry her in case he needs to form an alliance with another house. Knowing that Jessica is powerful enough to control the will of others, Dr. Yueh asks Jessica outright:

“Why haven’t you made the Duke marry you?”

Jessica replies:

“…motivating people, forcing them to your will, gives you a cynical attitude towards humanity. It degrades everything it touches. If I made him do… this, then it would not be his doing (page 69)”.

This here makes the readers understand Jessica’s need; not only to marry the Duke but for the Duke to marry her of his own free will. It is again something that never comes up in the film; Jessica is referenced occasionally as a ‘concubine’ and Duke Leto professes to her in one scene, “I should’ve married you,” but we see no reaction from Jessica. How does she feel about this? Happy, sad, indifferent? Audiences never know because the filmmakers do not care.

It is hard to imagine how another director would have adapted Jessica if it wasn’t for Villeneuve and his team; but judging by the documentary on his failed adaptation, Alejandro Jodorowsky would have been more of the same. In the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013), the titular director talks about how in the 70s when starting pre-production on his take on the sci-fi classic, he met with several high-profile actors for certain roles. For example, he met with Orson Wells for the Baron, David Carradine for Duke Leto, and even Salvador Dalí for the role of the Emperor.

Nothing is said of searching for Jessica, or any other female character for that matter (it is mentioned that Amanda Lear was cast as the character of Princess Irulan, but that was part of the deal in hiring Dalí as Lear was his muse). It is public knowledge that Charlotte Rampling (who ironically plays the Reverend Mother in the 2021 film) was offered the role of Lady Jessica, but that story was apparently not worthy enough to be included in the documentary. Jodorowsky had also committed extremely misogynistic acts and comments (which you can read here by writer Emmet Asher-Perrin), so the fact that people were so disappointed at this ‘lost opportunity of a film, especially by today’s standards, is a baffling take.

Pivoting back to the 2021 adaptation of Dune, in a film full of moments of various characters distrusting Jessica, it is infuriating that she is in fact one of the most trusted members in her family circle. In a subplot from the book that didn’t make it to the film, Leto tells Paul of a rumor going around of Lady Jessica being a spy for the Harkonnens. When Paul asks for clarification, Leto explains;

“…the Harkonnens think to trick me by making me distrust your mother. They don’t know that I’d sooner distrust myself (page 111).”

One scene where the film faithfully sticks to the book is when Paul is almost killed by a ‘hunter-seeker’, a weapon planted in his room by a Harkonnen agent. A detail that was removed though was that when Paul survives the attack, the person that he runs to first in the novel is his mother.

Duke Leto and Paul are not the only relationships that are altered by Jessica in this adaptation. The friendship between Jessica and Dr. Yueh is near non-existent in the film (but to Villeneuve’s credit, there is a deleted scene between the pair.) A spy for the Harkonnens, Dr. Yueh’s conscience usually kicks in when he is conversing with either Paul or Jessica.

At one point in the Dune saga books, lamenting on the tragedy that he actually loves the Atreides family, not hates them, Dr. Yueh thinks that “In her manner, in many ways, Jessica was like his Wanna (page 64).” Wanna is Dr. Yueh’s wife, who was captured and tortured by the Harkonnens so that Dr. Yueh would be a spy for them in exchange for her freedom. The fact that Dr. Yueh thinks that Jessica is like his wife (who is also a Bene Gesserit) is a far cry from the earlier scene in the film where Dr. Yueh warns Paul against his mother and the Bene Gesserit agenda.

The relationship between Jessica and the Reverend Mother is also completely cold in the film compared to the book. For example, despite the Reverend Mother’s harsh exterior, she does show warmth to Jessica. When the Reverend Mother says that she will be leaving soon and Jessica asks her if she must, she has this reaction;

The old woman’s voice softened. ‘Jessica, girl, I wish I could stand in your place and take your sufferings. But each of us must make her own path (page 25).’

The Reverend Mother even shows solidarity to Jessica in her choice to train Paul in the Bene Gesserit ways, despite him being a boy;

“You’ve been training him in the Way- I’ve seen the signs of it. I’d have done the same in your shoes and devil take the Rules (page 29).”

However, the most touching part of the whole exchange comes when the Reverend Mother says goodbye to Jessica;

“Jessica had caught one glimpse of the Reverend Mother’s face as she turned away. There had been tears on the seamed cheeks (page 24).”

A Modern Female Protagonist

To have seen two women show genuine affection for each other and not just exchange hostile quips, as it is in the film, would have been incredible to behold. In most 21st-century blockbusters, the characters who are mothers have scant encounters with other women; we do not see many with Molly Weasley in Harry Potter, or any with Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit franchises.

Live-action blockbusters have been deprived of well-written leading mother characters for decades now. Since Sarah Connor berated John Connor instead of hugging him in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), mothers have often taken the back seat in blockbuster narratives. Take, for example, the MCU; there were glimpses of complexity with Maria Rambeau from Captain Marvel (2019), but she was simply not given enough limelight to see her depth. This year’s Shang-Chi: The Legend of the Ten Rings saw the titular character’s mother exists to motivate the men in her life from beyond the grave. Even the female-fronted Black Widow (2021) has this problem; Natasha’s adoptive mother Melina Vostokoff’s trauma was briefly mentioned as to be the reason why she allowed her daughter to become a child soldier, but that is all swept aside to make way for the film’s bombastic final act.

There may be potential with Wanda Maximoff now that she will presumably be searching for her children in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) but seeing as there have now been 26 films in this franchise and that the above is merely a prediction, it is just not good enough. One of the more beautiful aspects of the Star Wars sequel trilogy was to see the character of Leia Organa be a mentor to Rey and to have a friend in Admiral Holdo, but Leia did not truly take center stage like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker did.

The DCEU is more or less the same, with Wonder Woman’s Hippolyta, Aquaman’s Atlanna, or Superman’s Martha Kent seen occasionally driving the plot forward, but it is so minimal that their scenes could probably be cut and would barely affect the outcome of the films. Celine Sciamma’s latest, Petite Maman (2021), clocks in at only 72 minutes but has a better-written mother character than all of the above combined.

In Frank Herbert's book, Lady Jessica is not merely a supporting character; she is arguably the co-lead. Readers are privy to all of her thoughts, she plays a vital role in keeping Paul safe, and her actions throughout the book directly influence the fate of the Dune universe. She did not deserve to be swept to one side like the blockbuster mothers before her, she deserved to be as iconic as Sarah Connor.

There is hope for Part Two to include some positive friendships for Jessica, where she has her daughter Alia or when she befriends her daughter’s nurse, a Fremen woman called Harah. However, it would have been nice to have these female relationships in both films instead of exclusively in Part Two.

Speaking of female relationships…

How Villeneuve will conclude Jessica’s journey will be revealed in 2023, where Part Two has been confirmed by Warner Brothers after a successful box office result. However, given one of the final shots of Part One, it is safe to expect more of the same. The shot in question is the look Jessica gives Paul and Chani when they walk away together, their attraction obvious. Spoiler alert: the look that Jessica gives them is not a happy one.

It would be easy to assume that there is going to be a major conflict between Jessica and Chani for Paul’s affections in Part Two, a sexist trope that needs to die a fiery death. The frustrating thing about this though is that it was nowhere near a major conflict in the book.

Yes, Jessica is initially against the idea of Paul marrying Chani. As was the reasoning behind Duke Leto not marrying Jessica, she feels that Paul needs to make sure he is unwed so that he can form an alliance with a powerful house if he needs to. There is no catty conflict between the two women in Paul’s life. Jessica even says to Paul at one point, “I do love your Chani. I accept her (page 413),” way before Jessica’s opinion on their potential marriage develops for the better.

Jessica’s reluctance to let Chani become a proper part of her family is not because of some petty insecurity of being replaced by another woman, but because of how Jessica views herself in her former partnership with Duke Leto. It’s a necessary part of Jessica’s character arc; someone who deems themselves worthy of only being a concubine to someone who realizes that she should’ve been a wife.

David Lynch's Adaptation of Dune

With all that being said about the recent adaptation, how does the Dune from 1984 compare? Get your copy of the Dune (1984) DVD to see the changes.

Written and directed by David Lynch, it was considered both a critical and financial failure, with Lynch even disowning the picture due to evident studio interference. However, even though Dune (2021) is the complete opposite in the above factors, both films bring Jessica to life in a way that removes most of her agency. Overall, the Jessica of the 1984 film comes off worse than the 2021 film, but that is due to the fact that we haven’t seen Part Two yet and therefore haven’t seen Villeneuve’s completed story arc for Jessica.

Going back to the ‘Gom Jabbar’ scene once more, in the 1984 iteration the Reverend Mother (played here by Siân Phillips) accuses Jessica (Francesca Annis) of having a son purely because of her love for Duke Leto. “You thought only of a Duke’s desire for a son?” The Reverend Mother hisses in a tone that drips acid. This change could have worked if the narrative actually did something with it, like push Jessica into helping drive the plot forward by acting out of the love she has for her family. Yet, Jessica simply remains a bystander for the majority of the film.

One of the pivotal things from the book for this adaptation as well as the revelation of who Jessica’s father is; Baron Harkonnen, the primary antagonist in both texts. This discovery was foreshadowed again in the opening chapter of the novel, where Paul asks the Reverend Mother:

“But my mother tells me many Bene Gesserit of the schools don’t know their ancestry.”

“The genetic lines are always in our records,” she said. “Your mother knows that either she’s of Bene Gesserit descent or her stock was acceptable in itself.”

“Then why couldn’t she know who her parents are?”

“Some do… Many don’t. We might, for example, have wanted to breed her to a close relative to set up a dominant in some genetic trait. We have many reasons.”

Again, Paul felt the offense against rightness. He said: “You take a lot on yourselves (page 13).”

The line “to set up a dominant trait” explains the reason why the Bene Gesserit wanted Lady Jessica to have a daughter; so that she could marry Feyd-Routha Harkonnen, the Baron’s nephew. Jessica would’ve married her daughter off to her own cousin (not that bad by Game of Thrones standards, but still). This again highlights how much Jessica is ‘stock’ to the Bene Gesserit, something that she contemplates unlearning as the novel progresses. You can see this change by renting the Dune (1984) version on Prime Video.

Even though this aspect was in the novel, it is understandable that Lynch or the studios would not want this storyline included; even though Herbert came up with this storyline first, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was released four years prior to Dune, with the film obviously containing the iconic “I am your father” line. Any scene to come out in recent years similar to this would look like a cheap knockoff.

Still, the fact that it is the mother that ties our hero to the antagonist in a more intimate way rather than the father is a unique aspect that was worth exploring. Speaking of Star Wars, the erasure of this Jessica’s heritage reminds me again of the sequel trilogy, where even though Kylo Ren is connected to Darth Vader through his mother, she is rarely involved in his character arc and his main conflict is with either his father or uncle.

The fact that a novel that was published in the 60s has a better-written female character than in the 21st century should not be happening. The fact that mothers on-screen are lucky to be even two-dimensional whilst fathers can be every shade of grey should not be happening. Mothers who dominated the big screens should not be a thing of the past; it should be our present. As for the future, all we can do is recite Jessica’s iconic line, “I must not fear,” and hope that creatives will fill the void that Hollywood currently lacks.

Where to Watch and Read Dune

The Dune novel by Frank Herbert

The Dune Saga by Frank Herbert

Dune (1984) on Prime Video

Dune (2021) on Prime Video

Dune (1984) on Blu-ray

Dune (2021) on 4K Blu-ray

Dune Blu-ray Movie Collection (both films)

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