Persuasion.qxp_Layout 1 22/07/2022 14:04 Page 1
FILM | REVIEW
Persuading you into Persuasion
All photographs Nick Wall/Netflix © 2022
Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot, Richard E. Grant as Sir Walter Elliot, and Yolanda Kettle as Elizabeth Elliot
Netflix’s film of Persuasion has been roundly criticised from all quarters. Emma Clegg enjoys the crits as much as the film itself and urges you to use one hour and 49 minutes of your life to see if you agree
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etflix’s new film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, released last month, has not had the admiring reviews it must have sought. “Everyone involved should be in prison,” declares Deborah Ross of The Spectator; “It feels like the movie thinks you’re too stupid to understand Jane Austen on your own”, says Constance Grady of Vox.com; and Stuart Heritage of The Guardian comments, “there’s something so aggressively obnoxious about the way that Persuasion cribs from Fleabag that it feels like the death of something.” Reading reviews like this (as we did with relish, following anything Austen related with fanatical absorption) only serves to make you
Cosmo Jarvis as Captain Frederick Wentworth
Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot
22 THeBATHMagazine
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augusT 2022
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issue 234
This filmic experience takes you away from reality as you follow a hazy, atmospheric journey to marital bliss want to watch it even more, and these reviews must in truth have upped the viewing figures significantly. The story of Persuasion tells of an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities, Anne Elliot (Dakota Johnson), who lives with her snobby and self-absorbed family on the brink of bankruptcy. When Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) – The Dashing One she once sent away – crashes back into her life eight years later, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances. British theatre director Carrie Cracknell makes her feature directorial debut with what Netflix describes as “a modern, subversive take on Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a story of second chances and the pressures women faced in Regency-era England.” Cracknell explains: “We wanted to adapt this story with a version of Anne who’s incredibly contemporary, strident, and funny. Someone who messes up, gets herself into awkward situations, and gets things wrong. We wanted to take the spirit of the original character and drag her into the current day. We wanted to honour the tropes and traditions of Jane Austen while making the characters more diverse, current, and emotionally available, where people could really see themselves in the characters.” Executive Producer Elizabeth Cantillon says, “It’s the perfect combination of sincere emotion with a vein of sneaky, subversive humour.” The reviews challenge with outrage the results of this approach. It’s certainly true that the Fleabag influence is strident; it’s valid to question why use an Austen story when it’s stripped so bare it becomes a timeless romance; and I can understand why history buffs and J.A. devotees feel outraged at such a flattened version of this sacred Regency story. Regency conventions are either unfollowed or loosened, fashions are relaxed, uniforms unworn, hair is minimally styled, often windswept and waistlines are lowered from the normal Empire lines of the period. What you have is a gentle, timeless story about love, how we make our choices, and how those are influenced by society and those around us, with the direct voice of the character in your ear, set within some sumptuously attractive landscapes and interiors, from urban chic to distressed country. And yet I found the film highly amusing and rather raw and beautiful in its scenography and soft, anti-bright green/blue/teal choice of colours. I’d say it’s like a gentle visual and conversational poem of a woman’s experience of love. It blows away the detail and leaves you with a distilled, soft-at-the-edges, evasive essence. I was carried along by it, helped considerably by the humour. Each role is a mere cameo. Richard E. Grant as Anne’s self-important, narcissistic, spendthrift father Sir Walter Elliot is a case in point, and yet
