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ragnhildholm
Reviews
Mansfield Park (1999)
A good enough film, if you don't care about butchering the characters...
As a romantic comedy, this is a good film. The acting is fairly good - particularly Johnny Lee Miller, who makes an excellent Edmund. But the story is not that of Jane Austen's wonderful novel. The Fanny Price of the novel is a delicate wallflower, intelligent and warm but extremely timid. In the film, she's feisty and strong-willed, independent and almost rebellious. Fanny Price is not confident and witty; she is shy and thoughtful. This "new" Fanny may fit modern sensibilities, but I was severely disappointed; by completely altering the main character, the whole story seems different. I should very much like to see an adaptation of the novel that remains as faithful to the book as the BBC's excellent mini-series version of Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth / Jennifer Ehle version) or Emma (with Kate Beckinsale, not the Gwynneth Paltrow version). If you want a romantic movie, go for it. But if you're an Austen fan, you might want to stay clear.