What is good about the new adaptation of Jane Austen's "Persuasion" and why the critics did not like the film so much
Miscellaneous / / July 26, 2022
In short, this is a bold adaptation of an imperishable classic that speaks to the viewer in the language of Tinder.
In mid-July, the streaming platform Netflix released a film adaptation of Reason, the last novel by the English writer Jane Austen, published after her death in 1817. Alas, Persuasion, despite as many as four television versions, could not achieve the popularity of other Austen works - Pride and Prejudice or Emma. Adaptations of the book were usually done by obscure British directors such as Adrian Shergold. (“Cordelia”) or Roger Michell (“Notting Hill”), so these films never went beyond their native British screens. gone.
However, other adaptations of Austen were also not particularly lucky: venerable Hollywood filmmakers like Joe Wright Englishwoman was absolutely alien - this can be seen from his very free adaptation of the same "Pride and Prejudice" with Keira Knightley. The picture retained the plot of the original, but lost much of the charm of "Austin" prose. The audience sincerely fell in love with the film, but it never became a real hit. The same can be said about Ang Lee's quiet drama "Sense and Sensibility" - a work, albeit an Oscar-winning one, but objectively lost in the past.
And yet, after the very warm reception of "Emma" by debutante Autumn de Wilde and the resounding success of the series "The Bridgertons" Hollywood masters turned their attention back to the work of Austin, noticing the novel, which was less than others in the center attention. Not surprisingly, it was Netflix, a streaming service that has largely made a name for itself on successful (and not so) film adaptations ("The Kissing Booth", "Death Note", "To All the Boys I've Loved", "The Witcher", "Enola Holmes").
The main streaming hit is a costume melodramabridgertons”, which tells about the court intrigues of the Regency era - is also based on the famous literary series of the American Julia Quinn. One of the main advantages of the series was the so-called blind casting - in other words, actors of absolutely any nationality could be cast for the roles of English aristocrats. In this way, the Shonda Rhimes series not only celebrated the American dream of democracy and equality, but also opened up new opportunities for racial minorities.
In the case of Persuasion, Netflix decided not to abandon a workable formula for success by applying the same blind casting - in other words, several main characters were played by actors of African American and even Asian origin.
The main character of the film - 27-year-old Ann Elliot (Dakota Johnson) - the middle sister in the respected Elliot family, who once rejected her close-hearted fiancé Frederick Wansworth (Cosmo Jarvis), succumbing to those very “reasons mind." Wansworth was not of noble birth, he also could not boast of a solid bank account. The Elliot family considered him an unworthy candidate, and Ann was forced to agree with them. Seven years after the break, Ann and Frederica's paths crossed again - during this time, the heroine was never able to find a new love and finally turned into an old maid. Wansworth, on the contrary, rose to the rank of captain and received a high status in polite society.
Persuasion creators read Austen's novel between the lines
Like Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice, Netflix's Persuasion can hardly be called a typical film adaptation. Yes, the plot of the film follows the letter of the original, but the similarities end there.
Persuasion opens with an unmarried young woman, Anne Elliot, hiding from the smug relatives in their own room and spends the evening in the company of a bottle of their favorite wine - sounds familiar, doesn't it? While one sip is replaced by another, the heroine's thoughts about her own unfortunate fate become only bitter and sarcastic. By and large, Ann speaks through the mouth of Jane Austen herself, who repeatedly sneered at mannered British aristocrats, but did it not defiantly, but veiled - as befits a true high society lady.
Persuasion's director, theater director Carrie Cracknell, discards all these conventions by allowing her character to do what she wants to do. what Austin was afraid to say or simply could not say, because she lived in a society where hypocrisy and three-story intrigues were valued above honesty and directness. Thus, Cracknell gave the writer's text, which suffered from censorship of her own time, a long-awaited release.
The heroes of "Persuasion" are endowed with modern consciousness
We can confidently say that in The Arguments of Reason, the good old reflection rules the ball. Not only Ann, but also Frederick and some other members of the Elliot family caricatured rethink their way of life, passive-aggressively making fun of their own role in the film, and even historical era. Such awareness is more typical for people of the 21st century, but not for the century before last. Paradoxically, in this way the stiff British become more understandable and more attractive to the modern audience.
After all, the issues of honor, dignity, prejudice and love that the heroes face immortal works of Austin are universal for any human consciousness, regardless of its period existence. Times are changing, but no one has canceled the existential crisis yet.
Only the language of the story has changed. But the language, as a rule, evolves along with the society itself. And let the dialogues of "Reason" abound with American phraseological units like "He's ten!", Acceptable more for Tinder correspondence than for British classics, this does not degrade the Old Testament language in the least novel. Rather, it adds life to it.
'Persuasion' is Netflix's attempt at a new 'Fleabag'
The sudden manner of the main character of the film to break the fourth wall and communicate directly with the viewer was obviously borrowed by the creators from the British TV series "Fleabag" Phoebe Waller-Bridge. At one time, the story of a thirty-year-old loser from London, who commits morally dubious, and in general not most noble deeds, has become a real television phenomenon, having collected a whole galaxy of cinematic awards.
Unlike the extravagant heroine Waller Bridge, the character of Dakota Johnson is a decent lady, but not without her own inner demons. Surprisingly, Ann's playful winks and stifled grins contain just as many halftones of sarcasm as Fleabag's sharp and demonstrative attacks.
Cracknell certainly wasn't trying to capitalize on the success of Fleabag. On the contrary, the director unequivocally showed that the inhabitants of London of the past and London of the present can be strikingly similar. The main thing is to establish the correct focus of perception and, according to the precepts of Austin herself, to discard all false stereotypes.
Such a technique makes The Arguments of Reason a film not so much postmodern as intertextual, speaking to the audience at once on several semantic levels. And this, perhaps, the main advantage of the Netflix film adaptation, alas, has gone unnoticed by most Western, and what's really there, Russian film critics.
Frankly, the press literally smashed the film - critics did not appreciate not only the free treatment of the creators of the novel, but also the ill-fated blind casting, which was so praised in the Bridgertons. Apparently, what is available to women's novels by Julia Quinn turned out to be absolutely unacceptable for the work of Jane Austen. Someone would call it double standards, others would consider it a tribute to the classics. In fact, the principle “to each his own” works here: those who are chasing starched tailcoats and imposing looks from under the fan are always may include one of four previous adaptations of Persuasion, where the original language prevails over the artistic form storytelling.
The rest should be given a chance to bold, albeit scolded from all sides, the Netflix version of the novel, which does not try to reinvent the wheel, but does its best to make the viewer ride it a little more fun.