srah blah blah

Barouches of Fire

I guess I should finally finish writing this post, before it's Sunday again and time for more Jane Austenpalooza (I've never seen a film adaptation of Northanger Abbey so I'm looking forward to that one, but I think I'm going to have to tape it).

Things I liked about Persuasion (2007)

• It was produced by Clerkenwell Films.


• Rupert Penry-Jones is ridiculously handsome and smoldering.


• I felt like Mary Elliot Musgrove was a more complex character in this adaptation than in Persuasion 1995. In 1995, her hypochondriac tendencies seemed more like annoying attention-seeking personal traits, whereas in this version it was more like mental illness. She also seemed to fit in better with Elizabeth and Sir Walter in this version. I didn't get the same impression in 1995 of Mary's social snobbery. I didn't realize that she was putting on airs and trying to elevate the Musgroves above their current status when she thought that Henrietta could do better than Henry/Charles Hayter¹. I thought she just didn't like Hayter for some reason. I didn't have quite the same impression of the inequality between the Elliots and Musgroves in 1995 as in 2007.

Things I didn't like about Persuasion (2007)

• What, no naval uniforms? I have no idea what the norm would have been for a naval officer who was home from the sea, but it was weird seeing all the captains dressed like civilians.


• Also, sailors should be old-looking and weather-beaten - just the complaint that Sir Walter makes about them. Not glorious and glowing like Rupert Penry-Jones.


• Mary Musgrove was the only one of the supporting characters who I felt had any depth.


• Mary Musgrove sort of stole every scene she was in and distracted me from the main story.


• In 1995, the Charles-Anne backstory was sort of sad and touching. If they had gotten married, he probably would have been much happier than with Mary and would have had better-behaved children that he would have been closer to. Anne might even have come to love him, even if she never loved him like she did Wentworth. In 2007, Charles will not shut up about guns. Guns this, guns that. Kids are a nuisance, guns guns guns. In 1995, you know that Anne rejected Charles because she was in love with Wentworth. In 2007, you think 'Maybe she just rejected him because he was so damned annoying!' It's not anything that should really make Wentworth go "What? She rejected Charles Musgrove? It must be because she still loved me! That is the only explanation!"


• I felt like Anthony Stewart Head was trying really hard not to play Sir Walter in the almost cartoonishly foppish way he was portrayed in 1995 but never came up with a different way to play him. "I'm not going to play him that way!" "Well okay, but how are you going to play him?" "Um... well, not that way!"


• The Anne/Harville conversation about men and women and love was wasted in the middle of the film. It's an important conversation that should be overheard by Wentworth, leading him to believe that she still cares. DRAMA! Instead they just chatted around the dinner table and that was that.


• The ending. What the hell was that? First of all, the running through the streets was not appropriate. But I will let that slide, because I can interpret it as the director's way of showing that she no longer cared for "keeping up appearances" in the way that her father and sisters did, and was going to do what was right for her, rather than what was right for the family image. But why did the movie have to end with Wentworth buying Kellynch (is that even possible, when it's entailed to Mr Elliot?) and them dancing on the lawn? It could have ended romantically. Instead it ended with... real estate. And waltzing.

All in all I liked it, but it's no replacement for the 1995 version. Your thoughts?

srah - Friday, 18 January 2008 - 12:29 PM
Tags: jane austen, movies, persuasion, reviews, tv