For weeks I've been waiting for the new Masterpiece Theater adaptations of Jane Austen novels. The DVD of Persuasion arrived on Tuesday and yesterday afternoon I watched it.
This production is dreadful. I realize we have become spoiled by the excellent TV series and movies of Trollope and Gaskell and Austen novels in recent years, which are noted for attention to detail and remarkably apt sets, costumes, and casting.
But by any standard this production is dreadful. Just let me say that Anne Elliot spends the last eight minutes of the film running (yes, running) along the streets of Bath without a bonnet (yes, without a bonnet), and unaccompanied (yes, alone.) This does not entirely explain Sally Hawkins' acting style, which even in much quieter times earlier in the film relies heavily on panting and gasping.
I will say nothing about the changes made in the plot. I will say nothing about the lush greenery outdoors as Anne Elliot writes in her diary on December 27, 1815 nor the sudden switch in transportation in the middle of the night. I will say nothing about the music and sound effects which would have been more appropriate to A Nightmare on Elm Street. I will say nothing about the pretty lad who was cast as Captain Wentworth and about whose lack of acting ability I am speechless in any case.
Nor will I comment on the jarring and inappropriate contrast between the costumes of Anne Elliot, who wore dark greens and reds and whose hair was sloppily put up and usually falling down, and the other women, some as much as thirty years her senior, who wore white and pale shades of yellow, blue, green, and grey and whose hair was elaborately coifed.
Again, the sets were superb. Alas, with the exception of the young Mr Elliot, Mary Musgrove, and the elder Mr and Mrs Musgrove the casting was not, nor were the script, the cinematography, or most of the acting.
Note to directors of period adaptations of fiction: Women never, ever went out the door without a hat before about 1900. Men were never, ever seen in their shirtsleeves, not even alone at home with their wives and children until the turn of the 20th century. No respectable woman would be seen in her underwear with her robe flapping open, not even indoors, in the evening, during an emergency. Married women always wore something on their heads, even indoors. Even in bed at night. None of these practices were optional for the middle class and aristocracy who are portrayed in adaptations of Trollope and Austen.
There is a kiss near the end of this wretched film, in public, in which the camera spends a minute and a half slowly creeping in on the lovers, one of whom, as their lips come closer and closer goes crosseyed looking at her beloved. As for running down the street after a man . . .