Persuasion on Netflix

TV & Film TV & Film: Chat / Discussions
1

Possibly the worst film I have seen lately Jane Austen must be turning in her grave .
What a load of rubbish .

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2

I watched it last night.

It’s absolutely shocking. The entire storyline was adapted to such an extent that poor Jane Austen must be turning in her grave. It’s nothing like the book!

3

I saw the clip and was put off from that. She was talking about cappuccino in Italian in the clip (I don’t remember this from the book) and you’d expect the actors to at least look British in the adaptation of an Austen novel. I don’t understand this obsession with using any ethnic leads in period adaptations. You spend half the time doing a double take at the incongruity.

4

I agree apart from the appalling non dialogue and barely any remslnce to the original story
The inane actress who took Anne Eliot who gaped moronically into the camera at al, times and the utterly unconvincing Frederick .who probaby learned all his lines in half an hour .
The rest of the cast were mostly black .
It’s like adverts everyone Is black or mixed race . We are not in the carribean or Africa why are being represented in this way it’s simply not true .

5

Like @AnnieS, I was completely turned off by the trailer. Anything less like a Jane Austen novel is really quite hard to imagine. And I totally agree about the predominance of black and mixed race actors everywhere - the ethnic minorities do seem to be disproportionately represented.

Yes, of course the UK is a culturally diverse nation now, but it certainly wasn’t back in Jane Austen’s day, so it’s utterly absurd to cast so many BAME actors in such shows.

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6

I have just watched the trailer, and it wasn’t so much the “diversity” which put me off, it was the contemporary humour. Just so ill fitting for Austen. It has clearly been re-written for a younger generation, but is so far removed from the style of Jane Austen on all counts, it’s hard to see anything of her in this at all. Not for me.

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7

It’s utter rubbish like Bridgerton without the oomph .
Shame it must of cost a fortune to make .

I gave up on it.

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8

That totally put me off too. I have some sort of radar that bristles at chronological errors in otherwise excellent productions. Downton Abbey started this. It was smattered with an excess of modern language and attitudes.

Producers are afraid of presenting life as it really was preferring to deliver a comfort bubble of superimposed modern values & fake history. It’s a deeper more sinister issue, tantamount to book-burning. If you don’t know your history then how can you avoid repeating the same mistakes?

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9

This
absolutely this. :+1:

10

Absolutely spot on, I agree with everything you say, especially that sentence which I have made bold.

I’ll never forget the scene where one of the daughter’s babies in the nursery dropped something and said “uh oh”, like the Teletubbies. I mean, of course a 15 month old can’t learn what it should or should not ‘say’ for a period drama, but the producers have the power of editing, for heaven’s sake!

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11

I read 2 reviews about this film. One said it was a load of tosh and, if they could, they would have given it 0 stars. The other thought it was great and gave it 4 stars. Either way, we don’t have Netflix so can’t watch it.

12

Are you sure it’s wasn’t -4 ?

13

As the years go by, it becomes more difficult to find good adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels - this effort is the worst I’ve tried to watch - I didn’t get past the first 15 minutes before I switched off.

The script writers said they had simplified the language and given it a contemporary twist in the hope of introducing new, younger audiences to Jane Austen’s novels.
I feel sorry for the younger generations if they watch this and think it remotely resembles the work of Jane Austen :scream:

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14

I kid you not, I drove to my daughter’s house today and handed her the book. I said let’s talk after you’ve read the book!

Just to clarify, my distaste is restricted to the movie’s depiction of the original storyline. I do understand the move towards diversity albeit it inaccurate.

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15

I confess to not having read the book at all
but I will say that the trailer doesn’t convince me to watch the movie, but it does convince me to get the book and read the “proper” version :+1:

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16

You won’t regret it! It’s a great read :nerd_face:

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17

The reviews I read on IMDb (156)the first 10+ I read are saying the same.

Its rubbish

18

I hope you do read Persuasion - I think it is so much more rewarding to read the book than watch any of the film / TV adaptations that have been made.

The 1990s seemed to be the best decade for adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels but I have yet to find a really good adaptation of Persuasion.

There has been some reasonable adaptations of Sense & Sensibility, Emma and Mansfield Park but the only really spot-on adaptation of any of her novels, in my opinion, was the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice.

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19

I always prefer the book to the movie adaptation, and try to read it before watching the movie. The only time I did it back to front was “The girl on the train” and felt so uncomfortable having someone else’s characters in my head while reading, I just ended up going off the entire thing! So yes, I have Persuasion in my Audible list for later on! :+1:

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Have you seen the 1940 film of Pride and Prejudice With Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier? It is enchanting.