Persuasion

[osprey_archer]

Because Julie and I are gluttons for punishment, we decided to watch the new Persuasion, directed by Carrie Cracknell and widely panned by critics. Because we went in forewarned, I actually found it… not as bad as expected? This is not to say that it’s a good movie, but there were in fact entertaining moments, almost all of which involved Anne’s hilariously narcissistic sister Mary (who plays her part with a deliciously self-absorbed gusto) or Anne flirting with Mr. Elliot.

Unfortunately the fact that these moments are the highlight of the movie only underscores the film’s failure as an adaptation of Persuasion: we’re supposed to be rooting for Anne to get back together with Captain Wentworth, not for her to get together with Mr. Elliot. But Captain Wentworth is boring! All his scenes with Anne are excruciatingly awkward! Whereas Anna and Mr. Elliot crackle with chemistry (he is played by Henry Golding, which gives him an unfair advantage), and although he’s kind of a sleazeball, so is this version of Anne.

The movie goes out of its way to emphasize and exaggerate Anne’s most unappealing qualities, like her tendency to sit in silent judgment of those around her. She criticizes Mary for her narcissism, claiming that Mary won’t notice that Anne is in the room till Anne coughs - then, later, herself fails to notice that someone else is present until that person coughs. A deliberate suggestion that Anne is as self-absorbed and obnoxious as the people she sneers at?

That’s certainly how they’ve decided to portray her in this movie. There’s one particularly dire scene where she attempts to prop up her flagging self-esteem and make Wentworth jealous by informing an entire dinner party that her little sister Mary’s husband initially wanted to marry Anne. It’s astonishing that Wentworth witnesses this impetuous humiliation of Anne’s sister and her sister’s husband in front of a gaggle of their relations, and still wants to marry Anne later on, because any sensible person would have looked at that exhibition and gone “Thank God we didn’t get married all those years ago, really dodged a bullet there.”

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

Truly, the problem with this movie as a Persuasion adaption can be summed up by the fact that Sir Walter Elliot, Mary Musgrove, and Mr. Elliot were the most fun characters in it— they're awful, but at least they're funny?? Anne is awful and cringey, which is a worse crime in a character imo.

(That dinner party scene made me wish I had alcohol on hand. The octopus digression was also pretty dire.)

[osprey_archer]

Would it have worked if they had leaned into Anne's awfulness to the point that she became funny too? Obviously, not as a Persuasion adaptation (that is not Austen's Anne!), but at least as a movie? Maybe not as a movie that I personally would have liked (I like to have at least one character that I actually, well, like), but it might have functioned on its own terms... Awful!Anne gets over boring Captain Wentworth and runs off with Henry Golding.

We actually discussed turning the movie into a drinking game - take a drink every time Anne addresses the camera! - but she addresses the camera so often that we probably would have been unconscious by the end, so.

[troisoiseaux]

Would it have worked if they had leaned into Anne's awfulness to the point that she became funny too?

I mean............. maybe? My inclination is that the movie would have been salvageable if they'd just toned down Anne's ~quirkiness~ and had a sense of moderation/context vis-a-via the funny anachronistic references (and possibly recast Wentworth the wooden).

[asakiyume]

Is turning to address the camera especially in right now? I feel like maybe the answer is yes...

[osprey_archer]

I think yes? Fleabag was a big success, and the heroine does it all the time, and I think people are copycatting as they do.

[kore]

-- Henry Golding is in this? Arrrrgh but I love him.

It sounds like they wanted to Fleabag-ify Emma, not Persuasion, maybe.

[osprey_archer]

Henry Golding appears to be having a FANTASTIC time so the movie has at least that going for it.

And yeah, I've heard a lot of Fleabag comparisons! It just seems like an odd choice for an Austen adaptation. I feel like you'd want something like, idk, Vanity Fair? (I've never actually read Vanity Fair...)

[troisoiseaux]

Ooh, I hadn't considered Vanity Fair— I actually have seen a play version that did, in fact, go for chaotic anachronistic comedy and fourth-wall breaking, and it was GREAT. (On the other hand: the main character is supposed to be kind of awful, but I'm still not sure if trying to make her Quirky would work? A bit hard to social climb if you randomly blather about your weird dreams and say incredibly awkward things at dinner parties.)

If they were trying to make a quirky anachronistic comedy of an Austen novel, though.... Northanger Abbey is RIGHT THERE.

[asakiyume]

I read someone else's review of this and yeah. Wow.

[osprey_archer]

I think perhaps what the filmmakers REALLY wanted to do was make a movie about horrible people being horrible, and why they decided a Jane Austen adaptation was the place for it... who can say.

[silverusagi]

I haven't watched this, though I have enjoyed various YouTube videos about it, lol.

[osprey_archer]

Perhaps the best way to enjoy this movie TBH! Although honestly I can't be at all bitter about it: it's given me too many hours of enjoyment, although not in the way that it intended.

[troisoiseaux]

I just found the best possible explanation for this movie (other than, you know, "producers didn't read the book"):

After being thrown out of Mansfield Park for letting slip that she would be happy if Tom Bertram died, Mary Crawford moves to a new town in need of a new identity. For reasons best known to herself, she chooses her victim as the often overlooked middle child, Anne Elliot. After murdering Anne and disposing of the body, she quietly assumes her new identity. Because the Elliot's never paid any attention to Anne anyway, over the next few years, Mary Crawford is able to cement the deception.

This is the only explanation for [Persuasion (2020)], right??

[osprey_archer]

But would Mary Crawford marry boring Wentworth when she had the possibility of roguish Mr. Eliot. as played by Henry Golding? Well, she has shown a weakness for boring men (c.f. Edmund Bertram), so maybe...

I think the real argument against this interpretation is that Mary Crawford has too much social finesse to ever commit Anne's excruciatingly awkward blunders in this film, like the time she tells everyone about her octopus dream and they all stare at her in speechless horror. If Mary told that story she'd somehow manage to make it hilarious and everyone would leave that tea party convinced she was the most witty and hilarious young lady they had ever met.