Mansfield Park

Rating:
Summary: Nothing like the real one
Review: I am a Jane Austen fan and was so utterly disappointed with this movie. It was nothing like the real "mansfield park." there were so many distortions of characters and plots to make it shorter. "mansfield park" is such a good book and for them to have given the wrong perception of the novel by making this movie was an insult. it would have been better off not made at all. if you've ever read a Jane Austen novel, and watch this movie, you'll probably turn it off because it's so inconsistent with her style and characterizations. whatever you do, please do not watch this so-called "Mansfield Park," it's a waste of your time and money. Go read the book instead, the book is phenomenal. If it were possible, it'd give this movie a -5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: If not based on a Jane Austen novel I may have liked this movie better. In a world of course, stupidity based humor and overt sexuality I seek Jane Austen as my island away from it all. Current movies based on her work such as "Emma" with Gwyneth Paltrow, "Sense and Sensibility" starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet and "Pride and Prejudice" with Colin Firth capture the essence and beauty of her work. This version of "Mansfield Park" had the potential. A beautiful cast, the costumes, the English countryside but they lost the spirit of Ms. Austen. Miss Crawford's attentions towards Miss Price are at times uncomfortably sensual. There are illustrated scenes of sex and also brief nudity. Not at all what I expected from a movie based on the works of my beloved Ms. Austen.

Rating:
Summary: The Attack of the Revisionists
Review: I cannot believe that Jane Austen, with her subtlety and cool observations, would have cared for this sledgehammer-like exposition of the evils of slavery, and the abuses of the class system. The characters have little to do with her creations. The film simply throws Austen's Fanny Price out, and replaces her with a feminist changeling, who, however attractive in another film, is simply not what Austen meant at all. I think I see what the film makers were getting at. I don't, however, think they should have appended Jane Austen's name or the title of her novel to it.

If you are not a great lover of Jane Austen and her work, you might find the film interesting. If you are looking for a good and faithful adaptation of Mansfield Park, you will probably find the film intensely irritating, as I did.

Rating:
Summary: Austen with a bite
Review: This film takes considerable licence with the original text, so if you are an Austen-purist, you may want to pass it by. On the other hand, Mansfield Park is not generally reckoned among Austen's best work, and in my opinion it benefits rather a lot from the extra dimensions, the darker undercurrents and the sheer zest added by the movie-script. As does the character of Fanny Price, who is transformed from the rather insipid victim and distant witness she is in the book, into a personality every bit as strong and outspoken as Elizabeth Bennet, making her the pivotal force in the drama. Her character is fleshed out further by turning her partly into Jane Austen herself: the delightfully whimsical correspondence with her sister in Portsmouth is all Austen's own. Thus reinforced, Fanny is well equipped to handle some very un-Austenlike situations; still, her walking in on Maria and Crawford "in flagrante delicto" may well give the authenticists a start. Henry Crawford is a rather more good-looking and charming character in the film than the book would have you expect (where Austen merely describes him as "not handsome", but in possession of "an air and countenance"), which makes Fanny's doubts and vacillations more readily understandable. The slave-trade issue, only touched upon lightly in the book, is taken to the forefront of the story, culminating in Fanny's discovery of Tom Bertram's sketchbook, containing graphic depictions of the horrors going on at his father's Antiguan estate - throwing a very sinister light on Sir Thomas in the process.
Inevitably, the additions to the story, the profiling of the main protagonists, and the retelling of 350+ pages in just over 100 minutes, mean that other characters are reduced to vignettes, or completely left out. I did not find this at all disturbing - in fact the caricaturist treatment of Mrs. Norris or Lady Bertram adds a lot of the required "comic relief". Also, there are some hilarious tongue-in-cheek moments, as when, at the beginning of her fatal speech on the possible rehabilitation of Maria and Henry, Mary Crawford exclaims, "For heaven's sake, this is 1806!" Again, purists may object against this scene: in the book Mary entrusts her scheme only to Edmund, and Fanny hears it from him second-hand; but in the film Mary shares it with the entire Bertram family including Fanny, and with the added cynicism of speculating openly on the financial benefits to be had from Tom's probable death. It is then not Edmund, but Fanny who challenges her. It is a very liberal solution, but dramatically it works perfectly, providing an intense climax through a head-on clash of "good" and "evil".
The cast is as good as that in any of the other high-quality Austen films we have had in recent years, but Frances O'Connor deserves to be singled out; she has tremendous charm and charisma, and is a presence powerful enough to carry the entire movie on her own. Jonny Lee-Miller, whom you might well associate with a rather different type of work, is a very convincing Edmund, and Harold Pinter gives us a suitably troubled and complex Thomas Bertram.

The entire film exudes an unsentimental, even cool atmosphere; in terms of cinematography, the eye can feast on many gorgeous images, at times Vermeer-like in their stark beauty. The choice to "cast" the fantastic ruins of Kirby Hall as Mansfield Park is a masterstroke, making it clear right from the start that all is not well with the Bertrams (why a completely different house is shown on the box cover is beyond me...). All in all, even though the DVD offers literally nothing at all in the way of extra's, this is still very highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly enjoyable
Review: The movie adaptation of Jane Austen's novel shares nothing with the book except names and key events. Although I am generally a literary purist and was initially quite shocked and indignant at its differences, I gradually warmed to the movie and have learned to truly love it as a lovely and highly enjoyable film in its own right.

Rating:
Summary: Mansfield Park
Review: This film has only the basics of the book in it. Yes Yes there names are the same but after that flying to the moon would closer to the book. Fanny boy does she act totally wrong her and Edmund seem to be practically enaged to her from the start especially when his father says something likeit would be a good family to marry into and he assumes it is the Prices when he's suppose to be in love with Mary! Quiet a few of the relationships between characters is wrong. Susan Fanny's sister has her importance changed in the novel as does her brother Williams. Whilst many things in this film are incorrect the film is still good but if you want to see a closer adaption I would look at the other one. Both are great it depends on what you want!

Rating:
Summary: Mansfield Park in Name Only
Review: I was very disappointed in this movie. I think that if Jane Austin were alive she would sue the producers! To anyone who has read the book and enjoyed it, they will be disappointed. This movie is very liberal with it's interpertation of the storyline and the characters. And as such for me it was unbearable to watch. For those who are familar with the book, in this movie,here are the following problems, (no spoilers here) Fanny is outspoken, sometimes loud and actually says "yes" to Mr. Crawford but later retracts it(this at Portsmouth). William is non-existent. Fanny is sent to Portsmouth as punishment for not accepting Crawford in the first place. Setherton is never visited, Maria is married after Fanny's ball, Crawford confronts Fanny about her love of Edmund and Maria runs off with Crawford after Fanny returns to Mansfield Park. The whole movie is choppy and does not flow as it does in the book. Plus additional scenes are inserted, (which are not in the book) about slavery that totally distorts the characters of Sir Thomas and son Tom. (In my opinion these scenes are not called for and destroys the characters and is opposed to what is in the book regarding them)
Granted it is and adaption of the book, and I am an open-minded person and have enjoyed the other movies related to Austin's works and would highly recommend them,(Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma-either version, and Sense and Sensibility) but I must say that this movie does a dis-service to Jane Austin and the characters of Mansfield Park.

Rating:
Summary: gloomy and boring
Review: Not as witty as the book, this film is rahter boring and goes on and on and on... Main character is not as gentle as in the book but rather pushy and self-aware. Not a good adaptation of the book if that is what the producer was aiming for.

Rating:
Summary: An adaptation worth seeing
Review: While not a literary scholar on English society and history, I did discover that the movie was very successful in telling a story about love worth waiting (for). After all, is not that the one quality we each hope and long for in our lives? I'm an old fashion romantic and this movie was true to the author's message...it is (after all) an adaptation of a great literary classic, and the director/writer does have "poetic" license to retell the story, in terms we can all understand...since we no longer speak 18th/19th century English.

Rating:
Summary: Jane's favorite...with good cause.
Review: Reputed to be Jane Austen's personal favorite from among all her sometimes straightlaced novels, "Mansfield Park" touches on the darker elements of society, but does not focus primarily on the faults of the men. Mariah shows the greed and lust she inherited from her father, while her oldest brother, Tom, seems to fit the mold of some of Austen's heroines, rebelling at the injustices and ugliness he has witnessed. The Crawfords, a brother and sister team of questionable morals, team up on our hero and heroine, Edmond and Franny. The DVD touches on the evils of slavery, drugs, lust, and the "selling" off of young women into society. I felt it should have carried a stronger story line into the slave trade and the goings-on in Antiqua, which obviously led to the moral break between Sir Thomas and his son Tom. But, all in all, I enjoyed it. Particularly, Franny's epistles to her younger sister, putting her unique spin on European history.