The review that made me pick this film, very very late one weekend night, described Dakota Johnson’s performance as incandescent. And post-watch, I’d say the word choice is fitting. It truly is, which makes for a very pleasing film.
Now I’m a hardcore Jane Austen fan. Which means all of Jane Austen, plus period films and romances (Downton Abbey, North and South etc.) are my jam. Austen’s heroines sprang from middle-class stock mostly, and like the women of those times didn’t inherit or have much financial independence (property often being entailed). They were schooled to make good marriages, but despite overbearing mothers, and the constant pressure to be married, our heroines generally stood their ground vis-a-vis taking a husband.
So also Anne Elliot the heroine of this story. Anne, the daughter of a wealthy man, is in love with Captain Frederick Wentworth, who has ambition but alas, no wealth or family standing. Anne’s pompous father and sister deem Frederick unsuitable and she is persuaded to break her engagement to him.
8 years later, Anne is still a spinster and still in love with Wentworth. Her family’s fortunes have come down a bit while Wentworth is now wealthy. She crosses paths with Captain Wentworth again, when his sister and her husband rent Kellynch Hall, the Elliot family seat. Wentworth is still a bachelor, but it is unclear if he still harbors the same feelings that Anne does for him. And of course, social mores dictate that the two must converse in polite musings about the weather and never about their true feelings.
Now, this movie is a modern take on Persuasion. Our Anne Elliot is a sprightly, straight-talking, heroine who speaks in asides to the audience, giving us a wry, witty commentary on the goings-on. I thoroughly enjoyed this modern take, especially because Johnson does it so well! Whether she is happy or angsty and petulant, she is always charmingly self-deprecating.
Where the film suffers is in its casting of hero. Cosmo Jarvis as Wentworth seemed rather stony-faced and not quite as handsome or graceful as other Austen heroes (think Colin Firth as Darcy). The film didn’t show us the chemistry that had Anne and Frederick so in love with each other, so that was a major bummer too.
Despite all this, Johnson had me so invested in Anne’s fate that I was quite delighted when Anne found her happiness with Frederick, stolid and dull though he seemed. Quite a good watch honestly – refreshing to see a vibrant Victorian heroine with a sharp wit and a mind of her own.
