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Reviews
Mansfield Park (1999)
Godawful from Start to End
Remember that Jane Austen book you read where the protagonist wrote nonsensical stories and ran around her uncle's house shrieking like a whackjob? No? Maybe I can remind you of a bit more.
The protagonist Fanny is an older woman who falls in love with her lipstick-wearing, teenage-boyish cousin Edmund. But Edmund falls in love with another cougar, Mary, who lives nearby. Mary the Cougar's brother Henry goes after Fanny. Fanny waffles about marrying Henry. Eventually she agrees. Then she changes her mind.
Edmund's father, Sir Thomas, is a rapist who likes to torture his slaves for kicks. Sir Thomas also loves to letch on any woman within ten feet of him.
Edmund also has a pretty sister named Maria - oh, wait, no. This Maria is a bit of a butterface. Julia is the pretty one, this time. Momma Bertram is addicted to drugs. Mrs. Norris appears in a scene or two, but isn't particularly evil, just kind of bitchy.
Still not remembering? That's because this film is unrecognizable compared to the novel. The dialogue from the book is redistributed to the characters at random. Whole personalities are reworked. The entire point of the novel - staying true to your morals - is completely missed. Instead, this is a novel about angsty people who are trying to survive in a world controlled by The Patriarchy, in the form of the Evil Overlord Sir Thomas.
Frankly, the whole film's ridiculous. It's what you get when a Jane Austen novel is done by a director like Patricia Rozema (who was, before this, best known for a small Canadian film about a lesbian threesome in an art gallery).
The 2007 BBC version isn't great, but it's 100x better than this mess. Skip it.
Emma (1996)
Do I smell ham?
This film is bad, bad, bad. I love Jane Austen books and movies. I loved Clueless. But I honestly can't see why this gets so many good reviews.
Gwyneth Paltrow spends the movie with pursed lips and an expression like she's smelled something foul. Emma is supposed to be condescending, yes - but she's also supposed to be silly, fun, and devoted to her family. You don't get ANY of that from Paltrow. She's just mean and arrogant. Moreover, you don't get the underlying melancholy subtext about Emma - that she is likely to end up like poor Miss Bates. I must say Paltrow did well with the accent, and only obviously dropped it a couple of times.
Sophie Thompson - usually a talented actress - is a total ham and turns Miss Bates into a caricature. She sounds like a stuttering Bugs Bunny.
Ewan McGregor is wasted as Frank Churchill; somehow, the director managed to entirely erase his magnetic charm. Alan Cumming is also wasted as a hammy, clownish version of Elton.
Toni Collette is terribly miscast as Harriet Smith. Harriet Smith is supposed to be a sweet-tempered, beautiful young idiot. Toni Collette couldn't be described as girlish; worse, she acts like an intelligent and confident woman obviously trying to play the fool.
Jane Fairfax doesn't look like a girl of twenty who is the equal in age and background to Emma. Jane Fairfax looks like a sultry older bombshell and acts like it, too.
That said, I thought Denys Hawthorne was charming as the hypochondriacal Mr. Woodhouse. And Jeremy Northam was perfect - charming, handsome, and he turned in a brooding and understated performance that was in stark contrast to the rest of the cast.
Watch the version starring Romola Garai or even Clueless. Both are much better acted and plotted than this version.