According to Veidemanis (see the source below), Polanski's 1979 film of the Hardy novel portrays Tess as passive, weak, and childlike. However, Hardy conveys the strength and unrelenting quality of his heroine, who is unrepentant about what she has done.
In the novel, as Veidemanis points out, Tess is asleep when Alec rapes her. However, in Polanski's film, she is awake and gives in to Alec. In the novel, Tess only succumbs to Alec after rebuffing him on several occasions, but she gives into him more rapidly and easily in the film. Hardy is able to convey, as the source below points out, the extreme emotional enervation of his character before she submits to Alec, but the film does not capture Tess's emotional state. In addition, Alec is portrayed as a kind of dandy in the film, but he is close to devilish in the novel and is likened to...
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Satan. The film is similar to the novel in keeping some of the dialogue from the book.
Source:
Veidemanis, Gladys V. “‘Tess of the D'Urbervilles:" What the Film Left Out.” The English Journal, vol. 77, no. 7, 1988, pp. 53–57. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/818939.
My answer will deal with the 1981 film Tess, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Nastassja Kinski.
In a general sort of way, the film is surprisingly faithful to the novel. The basic plot remains intact, though certain elements are emphasized and others are downplayed. The scene in which Alec d'Urberville rapes Tess is, of course, not depicted by Hardy; it would be decades before mainstream English and American novelists would include any explicit sexuality in their works.
The sequence which follows this, however, appears to depart from the book, for in the film Tess has now become Alec's mistress. I say "appears" because Victorian and Edwardian novels typically give such veiled descriptions of relationships that there is no way of knowing for what period of time Tess remains with Alec at this point in the story.
The closing scenes of the film are the weakest, perhaps because Polanski chooses melodrama over a more discreet approach. In the film, after Tess has stabbed Alec and is reunited with Angel Clare, she declares, "Darling! I've killed him!" When I saw this in the cinema, the audience burst into laughter. But as stated, the basic structure and tone of the novel are preserved. It was a giant step forward for the cinema if we compare this to earlier adaptations of nineteenth-century novels, such as the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights, in which the grim story is Hollywoodized beyond recognition.
Can you please clarify which film version you are using as there is more than one? The most recent is the 2008 mini-series. There is also the 1998 version directed by Ian Sharp. The most well-known is the 1979 version directed by Roman Polanski with Natassja Kinski as Tess. This was not filmed in England but in France. It was also made in the wake of the horrific murder of Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate (see the film's dedication). There are, of course, nuances in the presentation of the characters in each of the versions but if you are working with the Polanski version then the personal tragedy that shadowed the director is important as is the fact that he does not film in Dorset. Landscape is integral to Hardy's novels and the fictional world of Wessex that he creates. Tess is a symbolic character in relation to the landscape which itself become a character. The question is whether Polanski translates this on to the screen effectively given that he is filming in France, not England. Another key point of difference is that typically Hardy's novels are not as sexually explicit as a 20th century text and certainly not as explicit as Polanski's films tend to be. If you can clarify which text (film) you are working with then I can give you a fuller response. In any case any film/novel comparison should consider not only consider narrative sequencing, character and setting but also the use of music, lighting and camera angles. I hope this is a starting point for you.