Movie Review: BBC Mangles Anne and Wentworth
Ok, so I've finally seen that thing that BBC did claiming it was Jane Austen's Persuasion.
It was baaaaaaad, with a side order of horrible.
I was prepared for it not to be the 1995 version, and I know that books have to be changed to make good movies, but they biffed it.
What is with the running around? First of all. Anne is grown up, she's not pining. Sure, she loves Wentworth, but she's prepared for him to not love her anymore. That's the point. They also turned Wentworth into a doofus and alerted WAY too many people to the fact that they were both spurned lovers.
The point of the book is they love each other. One has too much pride and the other leaned too much on others when they were young. Now they are older, smarter, calmer, and while there is some drama in the final coming together, they both keep it to themselves.
Beyond the running around and crying and general drama going on. They moved half the really important bits into to new places that only achieved casting Wentworth and Anne in a very bad light. I didn't even like the characters in this version. Not to mention the changes made to the story do not track at all. Whereas, in the book and the 1995 version you feel the tension of Wentworth's letter to her, in this one it makes no sense, comes out of left field, and then it's back to the running all around Bath, two seconds behind him (never mind that he 'just' left his lodgings to take the water with his sister and yet apparently spent no time there either) to get right back to where she started again. So it's about her running and not about him.
It was just awful. That's what. It made the best of Austen's characters into moronic, boring twits and made the story boring as all get out.
And that is my opinion on that.
It was baaaaaaad, with a side order of horrible.
I was prepared for it not to be the 1995 version, and I know that books have to be changed to make good movies, but they biffed it.
What is with the running around? First of all. Anne is grown up, she's not pining. Sure, she loves Wentworth, but she's prepared for him to not love her anymore. That's the point. They also turned Wentworth into a doofus and alerted WAY too many people to the fact that they were both spurned lovers.
The point of the book is they love each other. One has too much pride and the other leaned too much on others when they were young. Now they are older, smarter, calmer, and while there is some drama in the final coming together, they both keep it to themselves.
Beyond the running around and crying and general drama going on. They moved half the really important bits into to new places that only achieved casting Wentworth and Anne in a very bad light. I didn't even like the characters in this version. Not to mention the changes made to the story do not track at all. Whereas, in the book and the 1995 version you feel the tension of Wentworth's letter to her, in this one it makes no sense, comes out of left field, and then it's back to the running all around Bath, two seconds behind him (never mind that he 'just' left his lodgings to take the water with his sister and yet apparently spent no time there either) to get right back to where she started again. So it's about her running and not about him.
It was just awful. That's what. It made the best of Austen's characters into moronic, boring twits and made the story boring as all get out.
And that is my opinion on that.