Persuasion

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely superb! Highly recommended- Austen would approve
Review: I absolutely adore this film. I had never read the book and I didn't know the story, but I thoroughly enjoyed this movie-- almost as much as Pride and Prejudice! As with all of Jane Austen's works, I could barely keep up with the names of the people and families involved in the story, which is imperative to understanding the story as it unfolds, so pay close attention to the names of the characters as they come into the film. Amanda Root does a splendid job of playing Anne, who is not a traditional beauty, but who is loved by several men for her intensity, intelligence, and of course her golden heart. Ciaran Hinds stole my heart! When he confessed that his love for Anne had never died, I was jumping up and down with happiness. Or perhaps it was jealousy... He is handsome and, of course, a perfect gentleman. The characters we love to hate also get the chance to spice up this story. Anne's father is terrible. He only cares about appearances. He endlessly talks about the women and men of his acquaintance and all of their physical flaws.

The costumes, old-fashioned homes, and acting in this film are all superb. I liked this movie even better the second time through, probably because I could associate each character more readily with his or her name. Rumors and gossip make so much more sense when you know who people are talking about... I loved this movie because it made my heart leap for joy as Anne and Captain Wentworth fell in love all over again, and I also loved it because Anne was so easy to love as a character.

Rating:
Summary: Quiet romance in Regency England
Review: Funnily enough Persuasion, Austen's final completed work, and the only one really linked to the Napoleonic Wars, was the only book she wrote in peacetime. Just a snippet of odd gossip which has nothing to do with this movie adaptation - which I loved.

Amanda Root was just perfect as Anne Elliot, the woman who had followed the good advice of her friend some seven years before and refused to marry a suitor without many prospects - Captain Wentworth. By sheer coincidence he returns to the neighbourhood with his sister and her husband. Partly to show Anne what a fool she has been in the past he starts seriously flirting with her two sisters-in-law (the sisters of her wife's brother) however it takes a near disaster to show that their feelings for one another haven't changed. Root plays Anne in beautifully - she is quiet, subdued, yet there is an elegance to her, and slowly her bloom returns.

I also really liked the production - the cinematography struck me as less colourful and bouyant than other recent Austen films (Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility) - in fact the skies often feel low, or crowded with clouds, the costumes dark and rooms not quite so brightly lit. Well until Anne gets to Bath that is where her father's extravagance seems to be shown in endlessly bright rooms. I really liked the production but I know that some people found them too authentic to be really enjoyable - things like hair being not quite clean or the small dark and rather claustrophobic rooms at Lyme. It is definitely a matter of taste.

A nicely unfolding film.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite Austin Production
Review: As a Jane Austin fan both of her books and their film adaption, Persuasion is my favorite. I never tire of watching it about once a month. The acting is superb. Those British have done it again.

Rating:
Summary: Five stars aren't enough
Review: I am an Austen fan, having read all of her novels (most more than once) and a lot of her shorter works. Persuasion is my favorite of her novels. That one I've read more times than I can count. I also own a copy of this movie, and I've watched it more times than I can count. Never have I seen a movie adaptation that was so right on with every step it takes. Beginning with the casting, (which is superb, from the leads down to the one-liners) and continuing through the script, direction, and acting, this movie never misses. If you're a lover of the book, you'll love this masterful adaptation. The writer includes just the right parts and leaves out just enough. The meticulous attention to REAL period detail ( only candlelight at night, characters with a limited number of items in their wardrobe, period faces unadorned with modern makeup, etc.) sink you wholly into Austen's world. This is not a movie that shows off it's period finery, and that's as it should be. Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds might as well have been born to play these roles. Anne reading Wentworth's letter at the end of the film is so romantic that it still makes me nearly swoon when I watch it. (You listen to Ciarin Hinds say "You pierce my soul" and see if you don't feel the same). This film was so successful, that evertime I re-read the book now, I hear those voices and see those faces in my head. Truly one of the most underrated and best films I've ever seen.

Rating:
Summary: Divine version of Persuasion
Review: Yet another wonderful version of a Jane Austen novel. In response to the person who suggested that some of the Austen movies are just costume fests (Emma)I must say that the tone of the novel and film of Emma is much different than Persuasion. Emma was written to comment on the idea of social class, is about a silly girl, and is firmly tongue in cheek. It is a sunny novel and therefore a sunny film. Sense and Sensibility is a darker film and more resembles the film Persuasion in tone. The tension in S and S is how will this mother and her three daughters find happiness. In Persuasion the tension is how will these two lovers reconcile and get back together? As far as Wentworth appearing in a non-uniform in his first scene, why not? It is not the captain's uniform that attracts Anne, it is the man himself. The Navy is the only way she can keep track of him. As an American I enjoy seeing these Brit actors in other films--Amanda Root as Miss Temple in William Hurt's Jane Eyre, the brother in law in An Ideal Husband, and Ciaran Hinds in any number of films such as The Man Who Cried (with Amanda Root.) I enjoy the work of these fine actors. Thanks for a great film.

Rating:
Summary: Marvelous, but subtle.....
Review: I loved this, and I won't repeat the gist of other rave reviews. It is very quiet, and slow-moving. It will appeal to those who like subtle nuances- you have to watch people's faces closely. Root was fabulous- what a face! But mainly I wanted to counter another reviewer who thought Ciaran Hinds wrong for the part. I thought he was PERFECT- glorious, masculine, not predictable. He was awkward in the beginning because he was knocked for a loop because... well, I won't give it away but you find out later why he was off kilter. Ciaran, I LOVE you- you are marvelous- loved you in Jane Eyre too. I don't know that this film will appeal to many men as slow-moving as it is, but women I know loved it.

Rating:
Summary: A True Romance...
Review: As far as I'm concerned, the best Jane Austen adaptation out there. A solid, poetic BBC production with no major stars, but great. Very atmospheric, with wind swept images of the English coast, and the dripping dreariness of Bath in the winter. Plus, their skirts actually get dirty! Also, I'm hard pressed to think of another film with such edge-of-your-seat romantic tension. And Captain Wentworth, played by Irishman Cairan Hinds is the ultimate Knight In Shining Armour(!).

The BBC's "Pride and Prejudice" six part miniseries is divine too. With Colin Firth as a smoldering and dreamy Mr. Darcy, and Jennifer Ehle as the lovely Miss Bennet, with terrific supporting cast. Fun, funny and lovely to look at.

Rating:
Summary: Shamefully underrated
Review: "Persuasion" is Jane Austen's most romantic and most overheated novel, which admittedly isn't to say that it's exactly "Wuthering Heights" - but it does carry a stronger emotional undertow than any of her others. As such, it also makes for a great movie.

It was also her last novel, and if you want to be crudely autobiographical about it, it's a rather wistful revenge fantasy. Anne Elliot, the only decent and sensible member of the cringingly awful Elliot family, has been fading into regretful spinsterhood ever since she refused marriage to a handsome Navy officer seven years earlier. Now that her mother is dead and her snobbish roue of a father down on his luck, the family has to rent out the ancestral home (oh, the shame) to a crinkly, friendly Admiral, whose wife happens to be the sister of the man she turned down. No sooner has Frederick Wentworth, the former suitor, now a successful and dashing Captain, strode back into Anne's life, than all her repressed feelings start to surge back. With mortifying consequences.

Nick Dear's adaptation was made for the BBC in the shadow of Andrew Davies' much more well-known (and more expensive) version of "Pride and Prejudice". It's far better. "Pride and Prejudice" ended up as an exercise in set dressing, with good performances defeated by lavish frocks and relentless background music. "Persuasion" was shot entirely on location, using only natural light (the evening parties are all in authentic sepia-toned candlelight), and almost all the music is being played in the scene, instead of swamping bad writing with mood. The characters get wind-blown and muddy and wet. This isn't really a costume drama at all; the only things that seem alien are the manners. A lot of this is presumably due to Roger Michell, the director.

Yet Michell also throws the responsibility for conveying this almost entirely unspoken story onto his actors, who excel. Amanda Root is superb as Anne. She starts out as a red-faced, mildly haggard-looking spinster and blooms into a radiant heroine, and yet seems to do it entirely without makeup; her manner changes, her gestures and range of expressions become freer, and as her love gains control over her sense of duty, she turns, as it were, into her real self. Ciaran Hinds is equally good as the impressively sideburned Wentworth; he goes from brusque and almost rude to desperately sincere. The rest of the cast are distinguished; John Woodvine as the genial Admiral Croft, Fiona Shaw nicely underacting for a change as the Admiral's wife, Corin Redgrave as Anne's risibly pompous and snobbish father, Samuel West as the oleaginous creep of a suitor, Sophie Thompson as Anne's sniffy and hypochondriac sister, Simon Russell Beale as the bluff and endearingly clueless brother-in-law...everybody is good.

This is a story told almost entirely by looks alone, and is as such a masterclass in acting, directing and editing. Easily one of the best Jane Austen adaptations ever, and incidentally one of the most satisfying British films of the 90s. You can watch it again and again and keep picking up on something you'd missed before. I'd even say - and you're entitled to shriek and storm off in a petulant frenzy - that in its technical excellence and emotional generosity, it's a better work of art than the original novel.

Rating:
Summary: The best Jane Austen adaptation
Review: The actors are superb in this BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion. I am a huge Jane Austen fan and I love this movie. A definite must see.

Rating:
Summary: Solid BBC Production incorporating BOTH of Austen's endings
Review: Although it does not compete with the elegance of the theatrical releases of "Sense & Sensibility" and "Emma," this 1996 BBC Films production of "Persuasion" has its own place in the Jane Austen revival of the past decade. With Anne Elliot (Amanda Root) and Captain Wentworth (Ciarán Hinds) we have the longest suffering set of lovers in all of Austen's domestic novels. Eight years early Anne had been persuaded by a snobbish friend of the family to reject Wentworth as a suitor since he was a young naval officer with no prospects. But now the financial fortunes of both parties are reversed, with the Elliots on the verge of bankruptcy and Wentworth a successful captain in the war against Napoleon, but their feelings for each other are unchanged. It is just a question of when the two lovers will figure this out.

Root and Hinds, both members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, bring the requisite maturity to their roles. Anne Elliot is the quintessential Austen old maid, with a resigned acceptance of her fate and an inherent dignity in the face of life's little quirks that makes the happy ending all the more enjoyable. This is one of those steady, unremarkable performances where you really forget Root is acting. She simply is Anne. Hinds has a marvelous scene where he puts aside the requirements of polite society to tell off the woman who thwarted his happiness. As is a requirement with all BBC period piece productions, the supporting cast is superb, especially Sophie Thompson as Anne's hypochondriac sister Mary (this is another one of those Austen literary families where the heroine is the only worthwhile one in the lot).

To me the most intriguing part of this adaptation is that it manages to incorporate both Austen's original and revised endings for the novel. I must admit that I prefer the revised ending because for once she has the reconciliation of the two lovers be the result of one of them having the courage to tell the other one how they feel (albeit in a letter rather than face to face). This was certainly quite different from Austen's usual tack of them accidentally learning about their true feelings for each other (e.g., "Pride and Prejudice"). I always considered this to be evidence of Austen's maturity as a writer, but unfortunately the work was published posthumously.