Mansfield Park

TERRIBLE
If you've read the book don't waste your time on this so called adaptation. There is nothing faithful about so short a movie version of such a complex novel. Austen would be horrified at this hack job. Billie Piper is a wonderful actress, but she is not playing Fanny. And her obviously bleached hair does not fit the era at all. I counted no fewer than a dozen characters completely missing. The character of Fanny was not at all the shy, virtuous, grateful, sanguine girl in the book with soft light eyes. Same names different characters. Too much was rewritten or removed to possibly enjoy it if you read the book. And the ending? Blah!

My least favorite adaptation of Mansfield Park
The 1986 BBC adaptation of Mansfield Park remains in my opinion the most faithful adaptation of Jane Austen's work. Starring Sylvestra Le Touzel as Fanny Price and Nicholas Farrell as Edmund Bertram, the two leads were a bit tepid in their performances, yet the script was quite faithful, perhaps too much so. Then we had the 1999 movie version of Mansfield Park starring Frances O'Connor as Fanny Price. Though she acted very well with the given script, the version was so far removed from Austen's work as to render it alien, and could only be appreciated if viewed as a story by itself, without drawing comparisons with Austen's work [for one, O'Connor's Fanny was way too spirited and audacious].

And now we come to the 2007 adaptation of Mansfield Park, starring Billie Piper [of "Doctor Who"] as Fanny Price, who at the age of ten is sent by her impoverished mother to live with her wealthy sister, Lady Bertram [Jemma Redgrave] and her family comprising husband, Lord Bertram,...

"Hot Pocket" version of Austen
This kept coming up on my "Recommended" page because I've been watching a lot of BBC series on Prime lately, so I thought, Oh, why not.

I think this was a joint production between BBC and PBS, designed primarily for the American market. This explains the heaving decolletage and lip augmentation for the ladies, and the too-long hipster haircuts on the dudes, one of whom looks for all the world like Bob Dylan in his mid-60s Carnaby Street phase. Theoretically, the movie is based on a novel by Jane Austen. But even if you're not an "Austen purist", it would be hard to class this movie as anything other than a guilty pleasure, though I couldn't tell you where the pleasure is to be derived. If you want an uncomplicated adaptation of Austen that focuses on the love story to the exclusion of all other concerns, I recommend the Gwyneth version of "Emma" -- at least that movie is occasionally humorous.

I'm finding it hard to find things to say about this production...

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