Unpersuaded

[lillibet]

Last night J. and I watched the new PBS adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion. I'm always excited to see a new version of one of my favorite books and this time I was especially looking forward to Rupert Penry-Jones (whom I adore as Adam on Spooks) as Captain Wentworth and Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from Buffy) as Sir Walter Elliot. Even when I disagree with the choices made, I recognize that they have to be made, and I enjoy simply being immersed in that world again.

However, I really think that the people in charge of this production essentially failed to understand Austen's world and the tone and scope of her writing and her characters.

• First of all, many of the roles were seriously miscast. Rupert Penry-Jones is a lovely, lovely man and a fine actor. But he is entirely unbelievable as a man who has ever spent significant time at sea. Not with that skin, he hasn't. Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove were similarly far too simpering and delicate to be plausible doubles for the educated, but hearty country girls. And that average-sized woman playing Mrs. Musgrove failed to embody the "sizable bulk" of her character's description. And at 41, Julia Davis is simply too old to reasonably play 29 year old Elizabeth Elliot and the idea of Mr. Elliot being interested in her becomes ludicrous and pitiful.

• Secondly, they took the emotional tone of many scenes and turned them up to eleven. Rather than painfully controlling her countenance, Anne was forever bursting into tears and leaving the room to sob over her diary. Instead of being deeply shallow and supercilious, Sir Walter was a blustering, roaring bully. Rather than simply selfish, Mary was actively mean. The list goes on and on. Some of the odd shifts of conversations had similar effects--rather than expressing his desire for a woman who knows her own mind to his sister and her husband, privately, Captain Wentworth declares it sitting across from Anne at dinner. And because Anne's conversation with Captain Harville is not overheard by Captain Wentworth, his letter to her makes no sense.

• Finally (I could go on, but really, this is enough) the sense of civilized veneer that gives Austen's scenes their wonderful subtlety was entirely missing. Anne's father shouts at her in front of the servants. She gets up and runs out of the concert hall after Captain Wentworth, making a spectacle of herself. And then, rather than a series of scenes of confusion in the final day, we get Anne, running at full speed through the street of Bath without a hat, chasing down a man and finally kissing him, in public, in broad daylight. Not bloody likely. I'm not even going to dignify the ridiculous, tacked on, "then he bought Kellynch for her" ending with further comment.

Overall, it wasn't painfully bad. Hey, I watch SciFi Originals, I know from painfully bad. It was simply wrong. Glancing around the net, I seem to have a lot of company in that opinion. It's a shame--there are a lot of people who love these characters and this story and it would have made a lot more sense to give us a lovable version of them, instead of this collection of ill-mannered, boorish louts.

Comments

[labingi.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the interesting commentary. I caught just a few minutes of the show, not enough to pick up on these things. But I'll just tack on a couple of rants for fun--I hope you don't mind. First, I'm utterly sick of Jane Austen adaptations. We have, what, 10 Pride and Prejudices? Why don't people adapt books that don't get adapted every day, like The Odd Women or The Good Soldier? Second, I don't see the point in adapting a historical text in a blatantly anachronistic fashion. A few changes are reasonable: changing a really old-fashioned word or cutting out the details of certain 19th century financial contracts. If you get into really old texts--like Homer--you may have to make some major changes to connect with a modern audience at all: ex. most folks won't be deeply moved by the recitation of ancient Greek poetry as dialogue. But if people enjoy Jane Austen, why not give them Jane Austen? Her 19th century attitudes are not really that hard for a Masterpiece-Theatre-ish audience to understand.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I think it comes back to money. Austen is a proven money-maker with a built-in audience. In this case, I think the whole project is part of their attempt to re-launch Masterpiece Theatre and they wanted something that would reassure their core audience while pulling in new viewers.

As for the blatant anachronisms, I'm right there with you. I love modern adaptations of Austen (well, I loved "Clueless" and the P&P references in "Bridget Jones' Diary" were a hoot, much as I generally hated that otherwise), but if you're going to do a period piece, make it period, dammit!

Without a hat! I'm still aghast over that one.