{"id":551,"date":"2022-07-19T10:40:57","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T00:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/readingjaneausten.com\/?p=551"},"modified":"2022-07-19T17:31:15","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T07:31:15","slug":"not-an-episode-review-of-persuasion-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/readingjaneausten.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/19\/not-an-episode-review-of-persuasion-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Not an episode – review of Persuasion<\/em> 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now that my other commitments are over, I (Harriet) am working on editing the next episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the meantime, I watched the Netflix Persuasion<\/a> <\/em>and posted an inappropriately long review on my personal Facebook page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought I’d copy it in here, so that I can more easily find it again when we move on to our Persuasion <\/em>season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TL;DR: <\/strong>As an adaptation of the book, it definitely falls short. Taken on its merits as a film, it was in some ways better than I had expected from the trailer – it did make me laugh in places (though not always the places I was supposed to.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This extremely long review is in two sections – 1. adaptation of the book, and 2. film on its own merits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an adaptation of Jane Austen’s book<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The biggest issue is that the personality of Anne Elliot in the film bears absolutely no resemblance to Anne Elliot of the book. The difference is greater than that of Fanny Price as portrayed Billie Piper in the 2007 Mansfield Park<\/a><\/em>. And this affects the mood of the entire movie \u2013 much more so than the Mansfield Park<\/em>. Because instead of having come to terms with the decision she made, and that it was the wrong one, this Anne has apparently been wallowing in grief (or alcohol) for 8 years. Rather than being reserved, she can be clumsily outspoken (such as informing a table full of people that Charles once wanted to marry her). So we are frequently being asked to laugh at her, rather than with her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And much of the comedy in this film is not <\/strong>the kind of comedy you find in Austen, and so felt totally wrong<\/strong> in tone. I\u2019m not going to enumerate the scenes, because I don\u2019t want to think about them again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the only thing I didn\u2019t mind about Anne was her snarky asides to the camera (when we are laughing with her) \u2013 again, these weren\u2019t the Anne of the book, but I could at least draw a line connecting them, as Anne is quietly amused by the people around her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Walter, Elizabeth and Mary were all more exaggerated than in the book (who even knew this was possible?) but again, I could see a line connecting them, as with Mr Elliot. Captain Wentworth and Charles were both a bit bland; Louisa sometimes worked as the character from the book, and other times not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the run time of under two hours, they obviously had to make significant cuts to the plot, as well as removing some characters. For example, Charles Hayter doesn\u2019t appear but is mentioned (as \u2018Harry\u2019 Hayter \u2013 callout to the 1995 version<\/a>!) and the whole thing of Louisa and Henrietta being rivals was dropped. I thought this was okay \u2013 it didn\u2019t really affect the balance of the main story. Aside from this, I think all of the key plot points up to Bath were hit, though at rather a breakneck pace. I\u2019m not sure if this was because more time was spent on Anne, or due to the addition of some not-in-the-book scenes (more on these below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Bath, the plot rather went off the rails. I\u2019ll give them credit for not forcing in the cancelled chapter, and for having (an abbreviated version of) the Wentworth overhearing scene and the letter. But I got very annoyed with the decision to have Anne think Louisa is engaged to Wentworth rather than Benwick \u2013 it removed all the tension of her trying to work out how to show Wentworth that he doesn\u2019t need to be jealous. And once again, we had a scene of Anne running through Bath \u2013 though I don\u2019t think it was as drawn out as the 2007 version<\/a>. And the final scene was certainly \u2026 different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other thing that felt completely at odds with the book was the number of scenes of characters talking <\/strong>to each other about their feelings<\/strong>. I\u2019m particularly thinking of a scene between Anne and Louisa, and even more of one between Anne and Wentworth. Which goes so against the restraint of the book. (Actually, there were a couple of one-on-one conversations between Anne and Wentworth in the first half. I think it works so much better if they don’t<\/strong> talk to each other until Bath. The earlier film versions proved this can be done.) I guess maybe that’s why they introduced the Anne-thinks-Louisa-is-engaged-to-Wentworth bit – to provide an external barrier preventing them from talking in Bath, when they had no issues doing it before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think these discussions of feelings there to say \u2018look, we\u2019ve got the emotional side of the book as well.\u2019 But the way it was done was just so completely at odds with Austen, that it didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the other things \u2013 the consciously modern language, the not accurate clothing and hair, the rabbit \u2013 I probably could have been okay with if the tone had been true to (my vision of) the book. (Well, maybe not the rabbit.) (And Lady Russell discreetly mentioning sex tours of Europe, pretty much by definition, was at odds with the tone of the book.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been comparing this to the Sydney Theatre Company production of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall <\/a><\/em>which, as I said in another Facebook post, had some of the same elements (fourth wall breaking, consciously modern language) but still maintained the soul of the book. And reflecting on the difference between a \u2018smart, modern take\u2019 on the book (which I interpret as being ‘this is how I see the book, through my particular, modern lens’, and which is what Wildfell Hall<\/em> did), and something that is more a ‘riff’ on the book (‘I’m using the book as a starting point, but going off wherever my artistic sensibility leads me’, which is this Persuasion<\/em>). A riff is something we expect in a version that is a modernisation of the story, as it comes with a built in distancing mechanism. But you don\u2019t expect it so much in a nominally period setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though even as a riff, I wasn\u2019t happy that it seemed to have sacrificed everything that I value in the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if they were so determined to have a period setting, I would have preferred it if they had either <\/strong>made a film that was truer to the original (without necessarily being slavishly faithful) or <\/strong>made it a completely original screenplay. Or even just called it something other than Persuasion<\/em>, and maybe changed the character names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a film on its own merits, irrespective of Jane Austen<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s start by saying that I loved the consciously diverse casting (I prefer this term to \u2018colour blind casting\u2019). And I loved the fact that they didn\u2019t try to explain it within the story \u2013 it just was. It bothered me slightly that both of the main characters were white (in the play of Wildfell Hall<\/em>, Gilbert was played by an Asian man, and Helen by a First Nations woman) but I later saw that Henry Golding was offered Wentworth but wanted to play Mr Elliot, so it looks like maybe it wasn\u2019t a cop out on their part, just the way the casting went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the most part, I thought the performances were good. I felt Dakota Johnson did a perfectly fine job of the part she was given \u2013 you can\u2019t say she was \u2018miscast\u2019 as Jane Austen\u2019s Anne Elliot, because she wasn\u2019t playing <\/strong>Jane Austen\u2019s Anne Elliot. I have no idea whether or not she would have been miscast as Austen\u2019s Anne, because that\u2019s not what she was asked to do. I thought she delivered all of her fourth-wall-breaking lines well, although the comic ones much more than the serious ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other than Anne, most people had pretty small parts. But in the unfortunately small amount of screen time they got, I thought Richard E. Grant, Yolanda Kettle and Mia McKenna-Bruce (as Sir Walter, Elizabeth and Mary) were all really funny, in an exaggerated, and sometimes almost surreal manner. Henry Golding was clearly enjoying himself as a rather slimy Mr Elliot. Nikki Amuka-Bird (Lady Russell) and Nia Towle (Louisa) were also fine, as were most of the rest of the cast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big exception was Cosmo Jarvis as Wentworth, who was so wooden<\/strong>. There is one scene, where he is talking about emotions with Anne, and I suddenly though of a kind of similar scene between Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman in Thor: Love and Thunder<\/a><\/em>. Because Chris Hemsworth gave this wonderful \u2018I\u2019m saying all the correct things, but I\u2019ve got all these feelings underneath, but I\u2019m going to control them because that\u2019s what I have to do\u2019. It was both funny and emotional \u2013 and there was just none of that in Cosmo Jarvis\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a lot of comedy in the script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I absolutely loathe cringe\/embarrassment type comedy, so I hated these bits of the film. I also don\u2019t like alcohol-related comedy. So \u2018let other pens dwell on guilt and misery\u2019 \u2013 I\u2019m not going to comment on whether or not they were well written examples of that type of comedy, because I\u2019m simply not equipped. On the plus side, there was less of this than I had been expecting, based on the trailer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I did <\/strong>like the comedy of Sir Walter, Elizabeth, Mary and Mr Elliot. And the snarky fourth-wall-breaking from Anne. And the consciously anachronistic dialogue used for comic effect. And the unexplained randomness of the rabbit. (Although I\u2019ve since learned that the rabbit a call-out to Fleabag<\/em>, which actually disappoints me, as it makes it less original and random.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would have preferred it if the costumes and hair were more accurate, and people didn\u2019t constantly call each other by their first names, but I may have to just become inured to that. I did like the colour palette of the costumes, and I can see that the styling was a design choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what I thought was objectively the weakest part of the film (as compared to my subjective dislike of some of the comedy) was the scenes of people talking to each other about their emotions \u2013 Louisa telling Anne she has fallen for Wentworth, and the ones between Anne and Wentworth in the wood, and then at Lyme. It wasn\u2019t just that they didn\u2019t feel period, or they didn\u2019t feel Jane Austen \u2013 I simply didn\u2019t think they were very well written. I think they were there to bring out the emotion, but it all felt very superficial, and \u2018tell don\u2019t show\u2019 \u2013 as if we wouldn\u2019t be able to work out what the characters were feeling if they didn\u2019t tell other characters about it. Of course, they weren\u2019t helped by Cosmo Jarvis\u2019s wooden acting (although it did mean that some bits were laugh out loud bad.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another piece of tell don\u2019t show was the amount of exposition delivered via rather heavy dialogue. The time this really struck me was Anne and Mary explaining Mr Elliot\u2019s past. Mary did have some good lines, but I thought it would have actually worked better if Anne had delivered it to camera, as a fourth-wall-break. Like she did when describing the other members of her family at the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in summary, taken purely on its merits as a piece of art, I didn\u2019t think it was a great film, but definitely better than I\u2019d been expecting. Most of the performances were fine, and it did make me laugh (both intentionally and unintentionally). I\u2019d be open to watching it again, though I\u2019d probably fast forward the comedy bits I don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though I\u2019m left with three questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n