Persuasion

 Despite my anti-fan status for Jane Austen, I have always held the Amanda Root Persuasion in my top five films of all time. Some of the camera work just blew my mind. As a work of cinematography, it's one of the most passionately and subtly artistic. This version could not and did not improve on it. I suspect they didn't even try.

It reminded me very much of the Keira Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice, in that instead of accurately portraying the story (which had already been perfected, for all intents and purposes, in the Colin Firth version (in the case of Persuasion, the Ciaran Hinds version)), it instead tried to capture the emotionality. Unfortunately, where the Keira Knightly P&P succeeded in amusing the more romantically-minded of the audience, this film managed only to turn a near-tragedy into melodrama. Poor Anne Elliot, instead of finding that her calm resignation turned into wisdom, in this film found instead that her barely suppressed and hysterical self-pity blossoms into an absurdly wish-fulfilling reality. Instead of facing her old mistake with good humor and humility, she indulges in self-flagellation, resembling in tears and emotional outburst Emma Thompson's Eleanor Dashwood (Sense & Sensibility), but not quite as well acted (or justified).

From the first moments I saw none of Jane Austen's characteristic irony, and all of the posing I have come to despise in film.

I can't whole-heartedly condemn this work, though. As a product of romance and an audience who genuinely appreciates a good melodrama, rife with white knights and mustache-twirling villains, it works. It passes. Sally Hawkins did a respectable job, and Rupert Penry-Jones was satisfactorily attractive. It simply didn't stand out against an already ground-breaking predecessor.

I did learn, though, that Sally Hawkins is now working on a new version of Jane Eyre. I've yet to see a version that entirely satisfies both my love of accuracy, and my emotional attachment to the novel, but I've also yet to see a version that entirely revolts me, so I think I shall hold out hopes for this one as well.