Mansfield Park

What has this movie done to a book as charming as 'Mansfield Park'?! The storyline has been altered until it is virtually unrecognisable! Fanny Price is nothing like she is in the book, the other characters have been equally changed for the worst and as far as I could tell hardly any of Austen's witty prose has been retained!! It seems this adaptation is 'Mansfield Park' in name only.

This is probably the most difficult of Austen's novels to bring to the big screen because the characters are so much a product of their time. Fanny is supposed to be shy, submissive, compassionate and pious. She was never outspoken, headstrong or feisty. In short, she is not Elizabeth Bennet and she never will be. To attempt to portray Fanny in this light is missing the point of her whole character. She is dull and boring by today's standards, but her disposition was admirable during the time that she lived.

I really don't know what the filmmakers were thinking with this adaptation - they probably weren't!! At any rate, it is only because Jane Austen is long dead that they would dare to produce this version. If you haven't read the book you'll probably enjoy it. If you have read the book, don't bother with this. It will ruin your whole experience of the novel.

Maybe it was a mistake to watch this adaption of Mansfield Park the day I finished reading the novel. This production is too modern. Now I understand that they probably wanted to make it "more appealing" to today's moviegoers, and I know that it's hard to fit all a book into a film - but why did they change the essence of who Fanny Price is? She is a highly moral, quiet, smart, very put-upon young lady. While Frances O'Connor is a wonderful actress, she played Fanny all wrong. She was smiling (constantly), having pillow fights, speaking her mind. There was no sense of period or restraint in her portrayal. I think the writer/director should have had more faith in the characters in the book.

With so many storylines to choose from in the book, I wonder why new ones were added, such as the slave trade and opium use? It is a shame that Sir Thomas didn't have the character arc seen in the book, that has him appreciate Fanny more and show her greater kindness when he returns from Antigua. In the film he is just always a big, mean bully. Jonny Lee Miller's Edmund is not nearly pious and conflicted enough. He is meant to be joining the clergy.

I am sure I would have thought it was an average film if I didn't know the original source, but it was a big disappointment.

This is the absolute worst adaptaion of a classic novel in existence. I am very sorry that Miss Austen is not alive to defend her work for such disgusting adaptaions as this. The added sub plot about slavery was totally inappropriate. I'm not saying that it wasn't an issue at the time I'm only saying that Miss Austen chose to leave it out of her novel so who are we to put it in there. PLease I beg all fans of Jane Austen's writing to speal out against this horrid movie based ever so loosly around her classic and wonderful novel.

The movie is totally unlike JA's original novel. The director turns a completely likeable romantic story into a complicated feminist abolitionist I-dont-know-what.

I like JA's Fanny Price - simple, timid, suffering unto herself. She gives up her happiness for everyone else's around her good and bad, and that is what makes her ever so sweet and lovely and adorable. Not the assertive outspoken Fanny shown in this movie.

Shame on the director. Oh! please let the classics be

They say the great thing about Shakespeare's work is that it is so open to interpretation. Every director can bring his or her fresh eyes to a play and make it new. Even so, I think we are obliged to stay true to the basic tennents of the text. Are the works of Jane Austen as open to interpretation? Maybe, but I doubt it; Certainly not if MANSFIELD PARK is anything to go by.

MANSFIELD was always my favourite of Austen's six novels. Many modern critics, while not denying its basic greatness, have problems with the book. Many find FANNY PRICE unlikeable, many find her judgemental, and feel that her Stoic, Augustan approach is hard to relate to. Stand-by, do nothing, and eventually he'll see the error of his ways and come to love you. Not very modern, is it?

OK, so if you don't like the main character, if you don't like what she has to say, then what do you do? Look for other aspects of the story you can relate to. In recent years some critics have chosen to see MANSFIELD PARK in Post-Imperial terms, as a critique of Slavery. After all, the family's wealth is based on plantations in Antiga, which were run by slaves. Is that what the book's about? Is it? I don't know. I think the evidence is a little slim, but who am I to deny the possibility? Maybe it plays a part in the subtext of the novel.

So, I'm a modern script-writer who doesn't like the novel, it's pre-occupations or even Fanny Price. What do I do? I completely re-write the story to take a possible minor sub-text (slavery) and turn it in to the driving narrative force. I then take smart as a whippet, stubborn yet passive Fanny and turn her into a ballsy version of Bridget Jones. With an attitude. I then string together a couple of scenes from the book with a few invented bridging scenes to advance the romance. Et Voila! I have a completely different story!

I don't know what this film is, but it isn't Mansfield Park. Enjoy it on its own terms, but don't ever get the idea that your watching Austen on the screen. But, jeeze. I think that if you're going to adapt a novel for the screen, you ought to at least like the source material; Otherwise, what's the point? If you don't like the main character, you shouldn't be able to completely re-invent her. Or if you do, you should have the decency to be a little ashamed.