Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointing! Very poorly produced movie!
Review: I was very eager to watch this movie, being a Jane Austen fan. I read the book, and loved it! So, after watching this movie, I was extremely disappointed. Not only does it change the events of the story, but it makes up scenes as well. Also, there is no development of the characters. You never feel as if you really get to know and understand them.I don't see why with having only two hours to present this marvelous story that the movie producers and screenplay writers feel that they have to make up their own half of the story. It was genious as Jane Austen wrote it! Read the book!
Rating:
Summary: Not only not Austen--contains serious flaws as a movie
Review: If you are looking for a faithful adaptation of an Austen novel, this is not the movie for you. There are major changes not just in the storyline but in the basic characteristics of the major players. This is not one of my favorite Austen works, but even so, it was a little odd seeing Fanny, the main character, run shrieking and laughing down the stairs. In none of Austen's works would this be considered a polite thing to do, but especially not here, where Fanny is supposed to be polite almost to a fault. One could forgive this departure in trying to make the story more appealing to modern audiences if the movie did not contain more serious flaws. When one decides to view a movie developed from Jane Austen's work, one expects to be confronted with the petty foibles of humanity. What one does not expect is that a major plot point will be the raping and degradation of people in a subordinate culture. It is true that such terrible injustices occurred during this period of history; but it is much too important a subject to be thrown haphazardly into a movie just to create some dramatic tension. To use it in this story is disrespectful not only of Austen's work, but to the unfortunate people who endured the horrors of slavery.
Rating: 
Summary: Well Enough
Review: Here I be - oncemore reviewing a Jane Austen adaptation that is not quite true to the novel from which it is contrived. And here oncemore do I sanction one and give unto it my blessing. (Sometimes I shock myself.) Yet I cannot deny that I found this movie charming. I must say that Frances O'Connor gives a more openly formidable spirit in Fanny than the subtle and silent brick wall of a spirit in the Fanny of the novel. So, here's the scoop: Fanny, the oldest daughter in a near-impoverish family of many children, goes to live with her mother's sister, Lady Bertram's, family on a large estate. Another aunt, Mrs. Norris, secures Fanny's position in the family as a sort of servant to wait upon her aunt and act as a sort of "savage" companion to Lady Bertram's daughters, Maria and Julia. Alone in her attic room with no fire, Fanny writes incessantly clever little stories and letters to her family - and over the years of her childhood and blooming womanhood develops a close friendship with the Bertram's second son, Edmund. Everything is quaint and peaceful until a brother & sister, Henry and Mary Crawford, move into the parsonage on the estate. As the Bertram sisters, one of whom is engaged and set to marry another man, flirt with and swoon over Henry, Edmund determines to woo Mary, who welcomes it notwithstanding the fact that that he is only the 2nd son and would not inherit the estate. In the meantime, Henry sets his sights intently on Fanny - who is by now in love with Edmund. So sets things into motion. The movie differs from the book, however, in not only several blatant characteristics in Fanny, but also distinct differences in Edmund's feelings toward his little cousin. The source of the Bertram's wealth - only vaguely referenced in the novel - provide in this movie a much darker view of humanity than I think Austen would have even conceived. But forgiving all that, I'll happily admit I shall - as with all the Jane Austen movie adaptations - watch this charmer several times again!
Rating: 
Summary: Clever, Witty: a Cinematic Delight
Review: Rozema rejected a boring script because she did not want a literary adaptation. Instead, she wrote her own in seven months...So, if you are simply looking for a screen illustration of Austin's novel, this film may not please you. The film stands on its own for cinematic merits. The script is well-written and works for screen presentation. It is funny as well as intellectually critical of Jane Austen's world. For this reason, the film is one rare piece that is BETTER than the novel -- because it examines and makes fun of the novel's fictional world. Go for it if you want a good laugh and a glimpse at human relationship of the 19th century with an aristically well constructed period piece.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't Like it
Review: OK, I have to admit that I have not read the book, however, I disliked the movie for its own sake. The love interest had no personality (and was slightly incestuous as well - blegh). No one's personality was well developed and the plot was SLOW. In addition, they mention slavery but really do not go into it. Fanny finds out that the Lord is an abuser of slaves and then she just drops it! Is the older brother against slavery or just a drunk? And why don't they ever show his face? The ending was weird as well, like they ran out of money, just show 1 minute of people sitting around while Fanny says "It could have happened differently but it didn't" many times. Plus a movie about slavery without ANY slaves! I didn't mind the lesbianism, I thought that it was the only interesting part of the movie. Plus, there was a lot of talk of education, but no one teaching - how did Fanny learn anything? so much wrong for a single movie.
Rating:
Summary: NEIGHBOURS
Review: OK ! Let's get back to the classics. At least, you are sure that your ears won't be hurt by the today scatological vocabulary so praised by the new generation of directors who thinks, by using the language of the streets, that they are making modern films. How wrong ! The themes treated by Jane Austen in MANSFIELD PARK are more actual and universal than the 90 % of the Hollywood screenplays of the year 1999. And I'm still nice with the old dream factory. Jane Austen was a witty and sharp observer of the late XVIII-early XIXth century period in England. She had the peculiar gift to feel what was hidden behind the masks that society and the system of classes gave to people at their birth. Her novels are little pearls of psychology that until now have well stood the test of time. But what I really appreciate in her books, it's the kind of black humor that reigns through numerous pages of her work. Director Patricia Rozema has particularly well translated in the cinema grammar this humor, specially in the last 10 minutes of MANSFIELD PARK. Three years after SENSE AND SENSIBILITY with Emma Thompson, MANSFIELD PARK is another excellent adaptation of a Jane Austen novel and can only arouse your envy to rediscover the other novels of this writer. A DVD for you and your schoolteacher.
Rating:
Summary: Went Looking for Cause and Effect
Review: For Jane Austen lovers, most of whom are the audience of this type of film, Mansfield Park lets us down. Not only does the movie do a particularly bad job of staying true to the story but it goes into territory that Jane Austen knew little to nothing about - slavery. The director obviously went looking for motivations for the action of the movie. The worst example of this being the acceptance and then rejection of Henry Crawford by Fanny Price. Instead of her dicision being vindicated by the revelation of his character he seems almost justified in sleeping with a married woman. The acting is just what it should be for such a film, but the choice of actress for the older Fanny Price was bad - she's too old (as good as she was). The cinematography and locations they chose were spectacular, but that is the only saving grace. Good sets however were not enough to save this film.
Rating:
Summary: When does the book come out?
Review: Having failed to read Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park", I can't really compare the movie to it. Nevertheless, I shouldn't have to, and the movie should stand on its own feet. The story of how young Fanny Price escapes a crude life with her family in Portsmouth to become a servant in the magnificent "Mansfield Park" manages to build up to soemthing several times through the film, only give up. Already intelligent and imaginative when she first leaves home, Fanny grows into more intelligent and beautiful young woman, more than Sir Thomas' daughters. Yet the film gives Fanny's wit little bite, and tool little of that is alotted to her unwanted suitor. Fanny much prefers sir Thomas' pious son, but that romance seems inexplicably obstructed by his engagement to the slyly amoral Mary Crawford. Are we really to believe that Edmund, comntemplating the life of a cleric, would propose to the seductive Crawford? And why would she accept, being openly contemptuous of a life that spurns materialism. Edmund seems to much a cypher without Mary Crawford: he keeps Fanny supplied with paper, quills and attention as Fanny grows into a young woman, but he becomes all too serious as a young man, and it's hard to visualize him growing up on Fanny's spicy prose. Fanny's position seems comfortably settled between servant and family, but she remains a servant, a member of the lesser class, and the consequences of her refusal to marry the conceited Mr. Crawford destroy the illusion...only for it to return when Fanny is called back to Mansfield Park from exile. Sir Thomas' other son, the sole beneficiary - under primogeniture - of the elder Bertram's fortune, is slowly going insane at the prospect of an inheritance that includes a slave colony in Antigua. Thomas' fevered sketches of Antigua seem almost modeled after those taken of the European concentration camps of the last world war. Yet Thomas is barely a presence in the film and his redemption, as well as both the elder Bertram's divestment from the slave trade and the racist attitudes upon which he rationalizes it are all cavalierly discarded by the end of the film, never tied to gether or convincingly addressed. Still, the actring is crisp and conveys what viewers may not be able to get from the words themselves, and Mansfield Park itself is the perfect setting. Containing not rooms as much as enclosed spaces as voluminous as caverns, it appears to open and claustrophobic when the scene requires it.
Rating:
Summary: A good movie... when not compared to the book.
Review: I have to agree with most by saying that this movie wasn't a lot like the book. I am a big fan of all of Jane Austen's novels, and so I was really excited when I heard about this movie. (Since the only other movie made of this book wasn't very good...) I read several reviews on it before I went and saw it, but these reviews only made me nervous because they didn't have many good things to say. However, I didn't need to be nervous because the movie was good... if you look at it as just another movie and not a movie based on a book. The characters were all very good for the parts and it was really fun to watch. I especially liked the "It could have ended differently..." thing at the end. I would recommend this movie to everyone whether they're a fan of Jane Austen or not.
Rating:
Summary: Dare I say better than the book?
Review: When I first saw this film, it bothered me a bit that it wasn't faithful to Jane Austen's original. But upon reflection and a few more viewings, I fell completely in love with it. Rozema has made a remarkable achievement, seamlessly blending Austen's novel, letters and journals into a more compelling story, while also adapting it for modern sensibilities. While I love the novel, the film Mansfield Park tackles so much more than the "manuevering business" of marriage and societal mores that Austen's novels are singularly concerned with. It harshly examines the strict limitations that women, especially poor women must endure and takes a rare look at how slavery benefitted the British Empire. All this serious stuff aside, the film also has plenty of comedic moments. The dim Mr. Rushworth and his bouffant provide some laughs, as does Fanny's attitude toward courtship, balls and her money-grubbing cousins. And don't miss the doped-up Lady Bertram. The entire cast is excellent, and Frances O'Connor and Jonny Lee Miller make a sweet and aesthetically pleasing couple. For all us girls, Miller and Alessandro Nivola make an already great film even more of a pleasure to watch. The only Austen film to which this measures up is Sense and Sensibility (though I adore all the films, of course, being an Austen buff). The costumes, the cinematography, the breathtaking shots of the English countryside and of course the beautiful soundtrack round out this rich confection of a movie. Watch it now!
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