NEW Mansfield Park (1999) (DVD)

 

 

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Mansfield Park is a love story set in Regency England. Elements of the plot and the characters will be familiar to Jane Austen fans, as this novel shares much in common with her other works. (In addition, the actress playing Maria also appears in Persuasion.)
The movie uses the main characters and basic plot of Austen's novel as well as her early works and letters as a departing point, being forced by time limits and the director's interests to pare down the novel and change some of the story's focus. This speeds along the plot but hinders the development of some characters and cuts out some of Austen's witty banter and biting social observations.
Patricia Rozema, the screenwriter and director, took some risks in making this adaptation. She has presented Fanny as a strong individual who writes, speaks her mind, and thus appeals to modern viewers. In addition, she has infused the movie with modern sensibilities. It is true that the other adaptations--and Austen herself--often neglect the world beyond the well-to-do as well as the darker side of their society. The frank depiction of Fanny's lower class family is the best realized of the director's intentions to more fully capture life at the time. Suggestions of sexuality, including an erotic scene between two female characters, for the most part intend to flesh out characters but may offend some viewers. The inclusion of drug use and slavery especially would have been more effective if woven into the story better, and a subtheme of the role of music and other arts is sadly dropped after suddenly appearing.
Although the screenplay undoubtedly could have benefited from some editing, the movie is enjoyable to watch. The modern elements detract from the sense of authenticity but do make this movie approachable for a modern audience. Frances O'Connor is captivating as Fanny Price, and Alessandro Nivola gives Henry Crawford a real sense of humanity. I liked listening for bits of Jane Austen's juvenalia and letters--some of the movie's best lines come from these works.
This is, however, my least favorite of the recent Jane Austen adaptations due to its unevenness. Nevertheless I recommend that all who are intrigued by this movie go ahead and see it, especially before you purchase it. You may love it; you may simply like it, as I do; or you may be so appalled at the changes from Austen's novel that you hate it. Bottom line: Give it a chance. It's not the best Austen adaptation, but it's not bad.
Note: the DVD has a widescreen version of the movie, the theatrical trailer, a short feature with brief interviews of the director and four main actors discussing what about the story and Fanny Price (as presented in the movie) appeals to them, and a rambling commentary by Ms. Rozema about her modern take on Jane Austen's work.

i think it's far too easy to get hung up on whether or not a film was "faithful" to the book it was based on. admittedly, many fans may end up disappointed that certain elements they expected were absent or changed, but the fact that film and the written text are such different media requires that, often, a novel will necessarily have to undergo alterations in order to work in the filmic medium. and that's ok, so long as we recognise that the film, whatever adaptation of whatever book it may be - in this case, mansfield park - is an entirely separate thing from austen's text, and treat it as such.

personally, i've always liked this film, if not as a "faithful" adaptation of a novel, then at least as a wonderful piece of postcolonial filmmaking.

I am a huge Jane Austen fan, and have read all her books at least ten times. This must be clearly understood, or nothing useful can come from this review. (To paraphrase Dickens.)

Mansfield Park is probably the least well-loved of Austen's novels in general, and this is partly because the book is far more serious in tone than her other, more famous works (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey). The heroine, Fanny Price, rather than being healthy, hearty, lively and witty, is a bit weak and sickly of body, serious and studious of mind, and, frankly, a bit of a tedious old stick sometimes. Of all Austen's other characters, Fanny Price most closely resembles Mary Bennet from Pride & Prejudice, who was ridiculed even within her own family for being so serious, so studious, and so completely plain.

Fanny is not an easy character to identify with, or to love, particularly in this day and age of self-help books, support groups, and psychotherapy (all of which she would most likely be involved in were she alive today). She is highly judgmental (or so I found her), for she has extremely high standards of behaviour that her family are all too likely to fail to live up to, and in the novel she seems to serve primarily as a moral compass for the reader. She is also, however, timid to a fault. When she speaks her mind in public, which she is seldom able to do, given how she is treated by most of her family, she often speaks so gently that those who would most benefit from her message never even hear her words.

Given this, the task of bringing Fanny to life on film, would be a daunting one indeed. How to write a screenplay starring a completely un-heroic heroine? The obvious answer - perhaps the only answer - is to change the character of Fanny, and this is what the screenwriter did. In this film, Fanny is everything she is not in the book - funny, lively, healthy, firm, decisive, active, and a writer. (In the book, she is a reader.) She is engaging and easy to identify with. We cheer for her and want her to come out on top, as in the end she must.

The story of Mansfield Park so hinges on Fanny being exactly as Austen wrote her that, after seeing the trailer for the film, I watched the movie more from curiosity than interest. As a film, it is entertaining enough. The story is similar enough to Austen's to satisfy anyone with a taste for the period but no extensive knowledge of the novel, and the casting and acting is good, as I remember. As an adaptation of the work of one of the greatest authors in English literature, however, it falls far short of expectations raised by the excellent recent versions of several other Austen works, Pride and Prejudice (BBC 1995), Emma (also BBC), and Sense and Sensibility (with Emma Thompson). It is no more faithful an adaptation than the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice (starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson), whose Lady Catherine disappointed me by being nice at the end.

The most jarring difference between the book and the movie, for me, was the reference to slaves providing the family's income. The eldest son's (Tom's) discovery and knowledge of exactly what has provided him with his comfortable life, is one of the movie's most dramatic, and certainly its most brutal, moments. In the book, Austen makes no reference whatsoever to what provides the family's income. She was, after all, a (mostly) gentle satirist about society and manners, and although she likely knew about slavery, there could be no need to mention it in her works of fiction. Indeed, in the book the prolonged absence of Sir Thomas Bertram (the story's other moral compass) seems engineered solely to allow his family to behave very badly indeed, and get themselves into such situations as could never have arisen had he been around, for life was very dull and predictable when he was around. There was no especial need for the destination to be Antigua; anywhere some weeks' distance away would have done just as well.

The injection of the modern sensibility of abhorrence of slavery seemed to me to be gratuitous, and an indication that, although he had a flair for the dramatic, the screenwriter had no particular understanding of or love for the original work, nor the patience to work through Austen's own plotline to the end. We did get there eventually, but I found this movie much less satisfying than the book.

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5.0 out of 5 stars truly entertaining
Having been prepared to be lulled to sleep, I found this version of Jane Austen's book most witty, entertaining and engrossing. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Michael B. Neuman

1.0 out of 5 stars varied from the book
I really did not enjoy this movie. It wasn't anything like the book. When I buy a Jane Austen movie I expect it to be based on the book. Read more

Published 2 months ago by heffco53

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring!
Loved this movie and Johnny Lee Miller. Very romantic and well-played. Gives hope that true love exists. I would recommend this movie to another Jane Austen fan.

Published 2 months ago by Jackie M

2.0 out of 5 stars Shocking
I was really enjoying the movie. I mean the first part was clean and inoccent. Then after she comes back from visiting with her family it just went down hill. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Ally

2.0 out of 5 stars mansfield park
Intially ordered the item as the seller had a good price and rating. However was quite disapointed with my order. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Janice W. Chan

1.0 out of 5 stars This is not Mansfield Park
To call this movie Mansfield Park is a travesty. It bears so little resemblance to Jane Austen's wonderful novel that one wonders why the producer bothered to call it after the... Read more

Published on Jan 21 2010 by B. Sears

4.0 out of 5 stars Not the most faithful adaptation
If you look at the numerous reviews of this adaptation of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, the consensus is that it is not a faithful adaptation. Read more

Published on April 13 2009 by J. Ramsey

5.0 out of 5 stars love it
I read the novel years before I saw the film, and I have to say, I prefer the film version. The differences don't bother me in the least. Read more

Published on Jan 9 2007 by mary fitzwilliam darcy

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely film though not the best novel adaptation
I, too, am a big Jane Austin fan and read the novel before watching the film. There are inaccuracies (Fanny's older brother, William, is completely left out), but if you are... Read more

Published on July 4 2005 by Terin

5.0 out of 5 stars Great romance, beautifully filmed
This movie is really good.
I understand people being unsatisfied if they have read the novel, (which I have not), but it is so well done as a movie on its own, that I would... Read more

Published on Nov 9 2004 by Alla Bandas

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