Customer Reviews

Mansfield Park (1999)

5 star:		(118)
4 star:		(69)
3 star:		(43)
2 star:		(43)
1 star:		(90)

 

 

This movie SEEMS to be Mansfield Park. The characters have all the right names, the action has a superficial resemblance to that of the novel, but there all similarities end!

This is a very modern Mansfield Park, regardless of the early 19th century setting. Viewers are caught up in a tale of the evils of slavery and the value of women's scholarship. Not exactly the focus of the novel!

There are some redeeming features. The costuming is beautiful; Mr. Rushworth, Julia, and Maria are gratifyingly self-absorbed and absurd; the differences between the Price and Bertram households are well-drawn. Austen fans will enjoy quotes from Fanny's writing: they are taken from the early stories of Austen herself.

However, the makers of this movie have made Fanny Price a very different sort of creature from the novel. Blooming and beautiful, sometimes sharp-tongued, she has little in common with the character in the novel.

The director has chosen to introduce elements not present in the novel. Sir Thomas, for example, due to a family business in trading slaves (never mentioned in the original), has gone from a dignified, rather stuffy but honorable man in the novel, to a degraded and rather disturbing man in the film. In the movie, he looks Fanny up and down as if she is a slave for sale, and arranges the famous ball of the novel as a way of "selling" her in marriage. And having brought in the anti-slavery subplot, the director simply dismisses it at the end, saying "Sir Thomas eventually gave up his interests in Antigua."

Sharply lacking is any of the satiric eye Austen cast on society. We are given the melodrama, but little of Austen's sharp wit. Very few of Aunt Norris' snobby ways have made it into the movie; the great scenes involving the "improvements" at Sotherton are missing. Fanny's brother William is missing entirely.

Why bother to even mention this is based on an Austen novel? There is little enough resemblance.

...And so we have "Mansfield Park", "loosely" based on the Jane Austen novel of same name (although, as is mentioned in the credits, Austen's letters and non-fiction writings are also used, particularly for dialogue). The characters keep their original names, but, for the most part, not their personalities. The heroine, Fanny Price, is changed from the quiet, deeply moral character of the book into a feisty tomboy. The story follows the basic threads of the novel, but adds several subplots and individual scenes that you are not likely to find in any Austen novel (Fanny's uncle giving her the once over, Mary Crawford giving her the once over, etc.). So why the four stars?
Well, as an adaptaion, the film only merits two at best. But taken by itself and judged as a movie, I have to admit it's quite entertaining. While not the Fanny of the book, as played by Frances O'Conner the Fanny of the film is extremely likable. Embeth Davidtz and the very appealing Alessandro Nivola have a lot of fun with their characters; Nivola in particular capturing the mixture of sleaziness and vulnerablity that makes the womanizing Henry Crawford ever so slightly attractive. The visuals are sumptuous, and the dialogue is laced with Austen's unique wit, much of it not in the novel. My only real problems with the film are with the slavery subplot (icky and distracting) and Johnny Lee Miller as Fanny's true love. Changing the chracters personalities also changes their motivations, and the actions of Edward, while making sense in the book, are not logical in the film. As a result, Miller's Edward comes off as wimpy and indecisive and detracts from the story.
Other than these two quibbles, I quite like this little movie. You are more likely to enjoy it, I think, if you aren't comparing it to the novel the entire time, as it really has very little to do with Austen's story. Taken as a straight period film, though, "Mansfield Park" is an enjoyable way to spend a rainy afternoon.

It is really infuriating that Jane Austen's most profound book has been turned into two very frustrating movies. This most recent film version of "Mansfield Park" has Frances O'Connor playing Fanny Price as we perhaps wished Austen had presented her. She has some spirit; she's able to stand up for herself; she's much more her own person than she was portrayed in the BBC version. The only problem is, this is not Austen's Fanny Price. (Fanny was portrayed in the other extreme in the BBC version by Sylvestra LeTouzel; she was so whiny, holier-than-thou, judgemental and obnoxious in that film that we were left wondering what anyone could find attractive in this person.)

Not only is O'Connor's characterization not Austen's Fanny Price, this movie is not Austen's "Mansfield Park". Patricia Rozema took some appalling liberties with Austen's book; here we have Lady Bertram as an opium addict, which is supposed to explain her perpetual indolence; Sir Thomas is Simon Legree redux, and Edmund, who at least had some personality in the BBC version, albeit a moralizing, sanctimonious snob, is little more than a cypher in this film. And Mary Crawford, depicted by Austen as a kind, generous, sympathetic character, is shown here as nothing more than a conniving little gold-digger.

Austen tiptoed around the fact that the Bertram family's fortune came from the blood and toil of the slaves on the family's plantation in Antigua; Rozema shoves it right in the viewer's face with graphic images of Sir Thomas raping and abusing the hapless slaves. Austen was well aware that the slave trade was an abomination, but she didn't go into it in her book, and it doesn't belong in any movie that purports to be based on the book.

Taken on its own, the film is a fairly enjoyable period piece, and Frances O'Connor is a winning heroine; but no way in the world does this movie deserve the title of "Mansfield Park".

Judy Lind

Ok, maybe its just me, but I have this funny idea that when you write a screenplay based on a novel, I think that you ought to actually base the story on the novel!

I will admit that there were some funny scenes in this version. Likewise, I'll admit that the novel is a little slow. However the few inventive scenes and the need to speed the story up for the screen don't excuse totally abandoning Jane Austen's novel.

Its hard for me to judge, but maybe, standing on its own and apart from Jane Austen's excellent book, this might be a good movie. However, it clearly was not designed to stand on its own. It was designed to capitalize on Austen's popularity and reputation.

As for my specific problems. After watching this version, I reread the book. There is exactly 1 explicit reference to slavery. Its not mentioned as a good thing or a bad thing. We're simply told that Fanny asked her uncle a question about the slave trade. That's it. From that, the movie extrapolates an entire subplot. Let me go on record now as saying that slavery was a horrible institution and a blight on the history of man. It was not, however, an important part of Jane Austen's novels. If you want to make an historical romance with a subplot condemning slavery, fine. But don't pretend its the same story as an excellent Jane Austen novel that was unconcerned with slavery.

In the book, one of the defining elements of Fanny's character was her relationship with her brother William. In this version, No William. To be honest, this didn't bother me as much when I first watched the movie. I then reread the book (twice) and realized just how much his absence costs the story.

Jane Austen's Fanny was a sweet, mild tempered girl with a strong sense of right and wrong. However, she was also terribly shy and completely unaware of her own worth. In this version, Fanny is a strong-willed, confident young woman unafraid to speak her mind. As a heroine in a movie thats fine. As Fanny Price, its terribly wrong. In fact, after reading Jane Austen's brief history of england(by a partial, prejuciced, and ignorant historian) [sound familiar-if not, early in this movie Fanny writes a book by the same title] I got the distinct impression that the purpose of this movie was not to portray Fanny. Instead, this story seems to be an attempt to take someone' idea of what Jane Austen was like and insert Jane, as a character, into one of her own stories. I've heard of worse ideas for a movie then inserting an author into her own story, but again, that is not how this movie was portrayed, nor was it ever explicitly stated.

Many of the other characters also strayed from Jane Austen's form. Perhaps, most notable, Sir Thomas. Jane Austen's Sir Thomas, while somewhat cold and reserved, nonetheless was a kind man at heart who clearly cared for his children and Fanny. (And William as well.) In this version, he is none of that.

I could go on, but I've probably said enough.

I am a huge Jane Austen fan, and have read all her books at least ten times. This must be clearly understood, or nothing useful can come from this review. (To paraphrase Dickens.)

Mansfield Park is probably the least well-loved of Austen's novels in general, and this is partly because the book is far more serious in tone than her other, more famous works (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey). The heroine, Fanny Price, rather than being healthy, hearty, lively and witty, is a bit weak and sickly of body, serious and studious of mind, and, frankly, a bit of a tedious old stick sometimes. Of all Austen's other characters, Fanny Price most closely resembles Mary Bennet from Pride & Prejudice, who was ridiculed even within her own family for being so serious, so studious, and so completely plain.

Fanny is not an easy character to identify with, or to love, particularly in this day and age of self-help books, support groups, and psychotherapy (all of which she would most likely be involved in were she alive today). She is highly judgmental (or so I found her), for she has extremely high standards of behaviour that her family are all too likely to fail to live up to, and in the novel she seems to serve primarily as a moral compass for the reader. She is also, however, timid to a fault. When she speaks her mind in public, which she is seldom able to do, given how she is treated by most of her family, she often speaks so gently that those who would most benefit from her message never even hear her words.

Given this, the task of bringing Fanny to life on film, would be a daunting one indeed. How to write a screenplay starring a completely un-heroic heroine? The obvious answer - perhaps the only answer - is to change the character of Fanny, and this is what the screenwriter did. In this film, Fanny is everything she is not in the book - funny, lively, healthy, firm, decisive, active, and a writer. (In the book, she is a reader.) She is engaging and easy to identify with. We cheer for her and want her to come out on top, as in the end she must.

The story of Mansfield Park so hinges on Fanny being exactly as Austen wrote her that, after seeing the trailer for the film, I watched the movie more from curiosity than interest. As a film, it is entertaining enough. The story is similar enough to Austen's to satisfy anyone with a taste for the period but no extensive knowledge of the novel, and the casting and acting is good, as I remember. As an adaptation of the work of one of the greatest authors in English literature, however, it falls far short of expectations raised by the excellent recent versions of several other Austen works, Pride and Prejudice (BBC 1995), Emma (also BBC), and Sense and Sensibility (with Emma Thompson). It is no more faithful an adaptation than the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice (starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson), whose Lady Catherine disappointed me by being nice at the end.

The most jarring difference between the book and the movie, for me, was the reference to slaves providing the family's income. The eldest son's (Tom's) discovery and knowledge of exactly what has provided him with his comfortable life, is one of the movie's most dramatic, and certainly its most brutal, moments. In the book, Austen makes no reference whatsoever to what provides the family's income. She was, after all, a (mostly) gentle satirist about society and manners, and although she likely knew about slavery, there could be no need to mention it in her works of fiction. Indeed, in the book the prolonged absence of Sir Thomas Bertram (the story's other moral compass) seems engineered solely to allow his family to behave very badly indeed, and get themselves into such situations as could never have arisen had he been around, for life was very dull and predictable when he was around. There was no especial need for the destination to be Antigua; anywhere some weeks' distance away would have done just as well.

The injection of the modern sensibility of abhorrence of slavery seemed to me to be gratuitous, and an indication that, although he had a flair for the dramatic, the screenwriter had no particular understanding of or love for the original work, nor the patience to work through Austen's own plotline to the end. We did get there eventually, but I found this movie much less satisfying than the book.

If you love Jane Austen stories, as the British say, "Give this one a miss!" Our heroine, Fanny, is terribly mis-characterized (as compared with the book, and after all, what else is one to compare it with?); so too, her benefactor, Sir Thomas. Fanny is made out to be somewhat bold-instead of timid- and the Bertram scion is portrayed as positively mean. If these changes to Austen's brilliant story aren't travesty enough, this screenwriter chose to make the story into a campaign against Slavery--a theme never touched upon by Austen-on the flimsy excuse that the Bertrams have financial interests in Antigua. To give you an idea of just how far-fetched and far-afield this is, try to picture the lovely movie, Emma Thompson's "Sense and Sensibility" as being turned into a rant about the Abuses and Excesses of The Church of England, merely because one of the central characters wants to be a vicar! It's a clear case of taking too much 21st century liberty with a 200 year-old story.

This is a clever, boisterous, and cheeky film. It is extremely well-photographed, and, for its purposes, well cast and well written. The trouble is, it isn't Mansfield Park. Fanny Price isn't Fanny Price, Sir Thomas isn't Sir Thomas, and Jane Austen isn't Jane Austen. The outline of the plot is there, but it is an altogether different reading from the book. Rozema has incorporated (or crammed) some of Austen's letters and juvenilia into the character of Fanny, and has created a heroine who is neither Fanny Price nor Jane Austen. Throughout the film the viewer barely gets a whiff of Jane Austen's wit and style. What we see more often is what may pass for the author's subtext, and still more often Rozema's superimposed contemporary interpretation. It amounts to a contemporary study of Mansfield Park, and how much you like it will be largely determined by how much you like contemporary values and mores; those in the film are not those of Jane Austen. If you like the movie, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will like the book, or Jane Austen. I think the director/screenwriter is more fond of her own ideas about Jane Austen than of Jane Austen herself. Some have suggested that this is how Austen would have written it if she lived in our day. Quite frankly, Mansfield Park (the book) could not have been written in our day by anybody. I am sure that Austen would not approve of her most moral novel being displayed in such a comparatively raucous tone (more like the tone of the condemned Lovers' Vows), nor would she wish it to be a vehicle for feminist themes. By the time Miss Crawford's true character is revealed, so little attention has been paid to morality that she does not sufficiently shock. For my part, the heroine constantly winking, as it were, at the audience, was rather off-putting. I saw it because my curiosity could not be satisfied any other way. It is, however, an interesting movie to see, but not before you've read the book.

I'm reminded of small minded 19th century composers "enhancing" Mozart symphonies so they'd be up to date. Or the Bee Gees' version of Sgt Pepper. Vandalism, as is this. PC (so 10 years ago). A moustache on the Mona Lisa (so 80-years-ago). What made these Hollywood victims think their little dogmas and anachronisms were improvements on the incomparable genius of Austen's favourite (and possibly most profound) novel?

Missed the point entirely, omitting the highly significant symbolism (eg. Maria's scene at the garden gate). Generally clueless, extraordinarily annoying, frustrating (such a lot of money down the drain, and we still don't have a decent MP adaption), and insulting.

Only thing for it: read the book. Repeatedly. You'll be amazed.

A disappointing treatment of a great book. One of the main themes of the movie is that slavery is bad and should be outlawed. ... DVD includes graphic drawings, being thrust without warning on viewer, of women being [violated]. Also, in one scene, the main character walks in on a couple engaged in intimate relations, again, the viewer doesn't have time or warning to turn away. The DVD should have been rated "R". The images border on being [in poor taste]. Again, very disappointing compared to other Jane Austen movies.

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.