Was it a Masterpiece? Eh. My heart did not palpitate for all 90 minutes of last night's airing of Persuasion on PBS. This Wentworth was hot, but no Ciaran Hinds. I felt like a lot of the plot got glossed over, and it was hard to really buy, in this version, that Anne and Captain Wentworth would have found their way back together (the ending seemed sudden and forced). Despite all this, even a sub-par Austen movie brings me sublime joy. Here are my musings as I watched.
1. I'm really not a fan of main characters (or any character, for that matter) repeatedly breaking the fourth wall to give me knowing glances or sob-filled stares. It's an overdone technique for these sorts of films, and I found it distracting and unnecessary..
2. Even Regency folks had to deal with housing bubbles. Go figure.
3. Anthony Stewart Head doesn't really seem old enough to have a 27-year-old daughter, does he? I enjoyed seeing him, but would have liked him to milk Sir Walter Elliot's foppishness a bit more than he did.
4. I've heard of flinging yourself at a man, but if you're going to literally do so, make sure the dude actually catches you.
5. Broken hearts are not as easily fixed as dislocated collarbones.
6. If that hog's head in the dinner scene is any indication of Georgian cuisine, my name, as a Jane Austen character, would be Anne O'Recksick. Gross.
7. When your sisters are acting like complete beeyotches, just grin and bear it.
8. In theory, being blindfolded in a carriage and taken to your old-new house is romantic. In reality, it would probably give you motion sickness and make you retch.
9. Along those same lines, socializing at the Assembly Room in Bath would have made me dizzy.
10. Single girls ought to do serious cardio training in case they ever have to chase the man of their dreams around town.
For a more detailed (and rip-roaringly funny) take, check out Fellow-ette's real time blog post.
I really enjoyed this version, though it wasn't exactly transcendent. I'll have to check out the 1995 movie. I also don't know if I needed Anne to have tuberculosis makeup the whole time. I realize she's bummed out, but still. Nonetheless, hardly a bad start to the new Masterpiece. And, as you've ably demonstrated, full of great advice for our troubled times. Look before you fling yourself.
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