Disappointing. Really, really disappointing, actually, since Persuasion is my favorite Austen. It would have been difficult for them to come close to the '95 version, which is (all due props to Colin & his wet shirt) my favorite Austen adaptation.
The biggest problem was that it was too rushed. An extra 1/2 hour (and a lot less packing at the beginning) would really have helped. I really mised Capt. Harville’s wife – due to her lack, my favorite dialogue in the whole book (the bit where Harville speaks of sailors missing their wives and families) had to be left out.
Everything was just a bit ‘off.’ The costuming looked good, but I wished they’d had the men in uniforms. The casting was fine, but not a single choice was better than his or her counterpart in the '95 version…
The ending was terrible – Wentworth was growing rich, but he couldn’t have afforded to buy or lease Kellynch. The admiral had only rented it short term – anyway, Wentworth wouldn’t have been allowed to buy it (it was entailed), or even to lease it long-term, probably (again, the entail).
Disappointing.
I’m hoping for better next week – there isn’t a really good version of Northanger Abbey that this one needs to measure up to.
I’m with you, Jess. And Persuasion isn’t even one of my favorite Austens, but this was just a bowl of bleh. I never once understood what was so wonderful about either Anne or Wentworth, Penry-Jones’s cuteness aside. So very slow and plodding, even with everything that was cut, and oh my god what was with that bizarre fish-gasping kiss at the end…?
Further, I am horrified and aghast that they changed the music for Masterpiece ____. As I’m sure Austen herself might have said: it is a truth universally acknowledged that one does not fuck around with the classics.
I missed the first 20 minutes or so and don’t know how it was set up, and I’m least familiar with Persuasion, but I think the over-arching theme of Austen books is societal restrictions. I closely work with an immigrant culture that puts much stock in the “right” marriages and seeing that same idea on screen in a white, European context puts some really interesting ideas into my head. I wasn’t a fan of seeing early-1800 middle-class characters making out in front of a Nash Finch terrace but it was an effective way to translate thoughts and feelings to the 21st century.
You would have had to be familiar with Persuasion - because of the length, it was functionally impossible to get much plot. You barely got that Sir Walter had spent himself into needing to retire to Bath, I agree with Dins - it was difficult to tell that Elizabeth was a sister and the whole Mrs. Clay plot was regulated to a few lines.
I watched this last night. That awful, interminable kiss in the middle of the street, after having run a marathon. It was very inappropriate, although that may be what they were trying to convey, that this time Anne was willing to be socially wrong for the man she loves. I totally don’t understand about the purchase of Kellynch at the end. Wouldn’t that have been entailed to Mr. William Elliot? Certainly I don’t think Sir Walter could just sell it, unless he was so in debt that his creditors seized it.
I will need to reread Persuasion. It’s been many years since I read it, and I was confused by the different relationships as shown in this production. I did think Tony Head did a good job as Sir Walter Elliot, odious spendthrift.
I thoroughly agree with this. Part of my enjoyment of watching Masterpiece Theatre is that the intro has been the same since I started watching it with my mom when I was eight or so (or younger). I still miss the intros by Alistair Cooke, and those have been gone for a while.