Customer Reviews

Masterpiece Theatre: Northanger Abbey

5 star:		(76)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Of the 3 adaptations produced by ITV in 2007, Northanger Abbey was the best (or the least bad to be honest). I have received the DVD now and I notice to my disappointment, anger and outrage that PBS is cheating its public by selling a cut version of the adaptation. PBS had acknowleged it was going to broadcast a cut version, but it had also promised that the full and complete version would be in the DVD, and that is NOT true. They are selling the cut version only. So beware, do not order this DVD unless you want only an incomplete version. Furthermore, it is advertised as close-captioned, and that is not true, there are no subtitles nor close caption in this DVD

This version of Jane Austen's novel "Northanger Abbey" is sure to be a crowd-pleaser. I've seen 3 out of the 4 new adaptations of Jane Austen's novels ("Sense & Sensibility" will not be broadcast in the UK/US until Jan. 08), and this is - in my opinion - the very best of them all.

What the early 80's version of "Northanger Abbey" (starring Peter Firth and Katherine Schlesinger) lacked, this version more than makes up for. NA 07 (as it is fondly known among Janeites) stars newcomers Felicity Jones (Servants), JJ Feild (Nicholas Nickleby, Ruby in the Smoke), William Beck (Robin Hood) and Carey Mulligan (Pride & Prejudice), and British tv and stage veterans Liam Cunningham, Sylvestra LeTouzel ('80s Mansfield Park) and Gerry O'Brien. Screenplay is by Andrew Davies, who also penned the well-loved and swoon-inducing period drama favorites Pride & Prejudice (1995), Daniel Deronda, Doctor Zhivago (2002 tv version), Middlemarch and Wives & Daughters. True British period drama fans do not need introduction to him or his work.

Those have read the books know the story. For the novice, the story is as follows: young 17-year old Catherine Morland accompanies the wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Allen to Bath for her first introduction to Georgian society. She meets the charming Henry Tilney and gregarious John Thorpe who both vie for her attentions, and befriends John's sister Isabella and Henry's sister Eleanor. She meets General Tilney (Henry's father), who mistakenly takes her for an heiress. After the whirlwind social life of Bath, she is invited by the Tilneys to their country estate, Northanger Abbey, where - due to the influence of her fondness for gothic novels - she thinks up some fanciful ideas about the General. She falls in love with Henry, but her fancies and the General's discovery of her family's true social standing land her in trouble and threaten to tear her and Henry apart.

This adaptation triumphs in many ways. Fans of the novels know Henry Tilney as one of the most memorable and well-loved of Jane Austen's heroes. He is charming, outgoing and witty as Mr. Darcy is serious, proud and aloof. Henry as played JJ Feild is aptly charming, handsome and swoon-inducing. Young and naive Catherine is played perfectly by the delightful, lovely and talented Felicity Jones. JJ and Felicity have an undeniable chemistry that echoes through every scene that they share. They are - beyond a doubt - perfectly cast. Also well cast are the lovely Carey Mulligan as the ambitious, shallow Isabella and William Beck is perfectly sleazy as her brother John. Liam Cunningham adds a certain gravity to the role of the imperious General Tilney while Sylvestra Le Touzel and Julia Dearden are endearing and often funny as the flighty Mrs. Allen and maternal Mrs. Morland.

The screenplay blends romance, satire, humor and drama perfectly while still staying true to Jane Austen's novel. The costumes and production values are top-notch. The only things I could really find fault on was that I wish ITV had made this into a 2 or 3 hour miniseries (instead of only 1.5 hours) and that Bath was actually used for the Bath locations. Viewers like me who have actually been to Bath will be able to tell the difference. And there is certainly enough material in Ms. Austen's novel to warrant a longer running time.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent period drama and is rightly one of the best Jane Austen adaptations since the 1995 versions of Pride & Prejudice, Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility (though I also admit a fondness for Pride & Prejudice 2005 & 1980, and Emma (with Gwyneth Paltrow)). Of the 3 recent adaptations that will be shown in Masterpiece Theater in 2008, this is my favorite. "Persuasion" comes next, and "Mansfield Park" comes last. Time will tell how the new version of "Sense & Sensibility" will compare to these three. As it stands, however, "Northanger Abbey" is an absolute gem and a crowd-pleaser that is sure to delight period drama fans. I trust that female (and some male) viewers will become a JJ Feild fans after they see this.

Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey were all three done as 90 minute iTV adaptations this year, and Northanger Abbey I like second best, just behind Persuasion (it was a tough choice for me: read my review below and you may understand why). I was so extremely thankful that someone had FINALLY undertaken to make a new version of Northanger Abbey! (the 1986 version being so difficult to enjoy)...although I must say I sincerely wish they had undertaken to make a longer version, with less editing of the book, and more accuracy!

On a trip to Bath Catherine Morland meets two men who immediately become interested in her romantically: Henry Tilney and John Thorpe. Felicity Jones as Catherine Morland is a great choice: she is so sweet and innocent and yet imagines such dark and sensual goings on in her dreams as well as during her trip to Northanger Abbey, ancestral home of Henry Tilney (JJ Field). The wild imaginings and fantasies of Catherine that are sparked by her love of gothic romances (novels), lead her down a path that may change the course of her future!

Content: there are some things to be aware of: mild swearing (few uses of d*mn), some cleavage shown, a scene were Catherine dreams of a man coming into her presence while she is in a bath (she takes his hand and leaves the bath), nothing shown; there is a scene where a woman is covered by sheets and it is implied that she and a young man have just had `relations' together; there are mentions of possible schemes & violence, which turn out to be untrue; there is a lot of sexual innuendo, and fantasies of swordfights, etc., but all in all it is kept to a fair minimum.

What a nice, new adaptation of Northanger Abbey! Finally we have a halfway decent adaptation of this book to enjoy on the screen: I give them extra points for this alone, and then have to subtract some for things like the overtly sensual content and the switching of 'Udolpho' for 'The Monk', but really, I am just so pleased to have A VERSION of Northanger Abbey to watch on a regular basis (I'm sorry, I just can't very often stomach the older BBC version in this instance), I can almost forgive anything. The casting is so well done and the story played out very well (with most all the key points, and I'll give them their 'errors' and omissions) that I must say bravo for a job FAIRLY well done!

i very much enjoyed this film. the actors were great, the production well done. i've purchased many austin film adaptations, but on principle, i won't purchase this because the dvd released in the states is cut by 7 minutes (or more?), as compared to the british dvd release. who knows what we've missed because some idiot at PBS has some power to abuse and thinks they know better. (the new film adaptations are generally too short as it is to do justice to the novels, except maybe the new sense and sensibility which seemed well done in this respect.) but i find this so infuriating. i hate this practice. thus, no purchase. hopefully some other executive at PBS will do their job and correct this stupid error.

Just a quick note -- I went over to Amazon.com.uk -- Northanger Abbey is 120 minutes in UK -- in US, only about 90 minutes.... No wonder it felt a bit clunky in the Masterpiece Theatre version!

I join the other reviewers who were disappointed about the missing and cut scenes that were un-aired on PBS, but a part of the original airing on ITV in the UK. I purchased Persuasion, which is a part of the same Masterpiece Classic series, and the un-aired scenes were included on the DVD. Therefore, I fully expected this adaptation to include those scenes and I am unsure why the few minutes were left out.

Overall, however, the adaptation was quite good, if a bit rushed, especially at the end. Northanger is a hard book to adapt for the screen, as the past BBC version exemplifies. This version is very enjoyable with the two leads capturing the spirit of the roles, and the atmosphere a good balance between the ridiculous and the mysterious.

Northanger Abbey is in my opinion the funniest of Jane Austen's novels. Written as an intentional parody, it is lighter fare than her other works, with still enough social satire for it to be thought-provoking as well as entertaining.

I was nervous about seeing it adapted for the screen. I haven't seen the old versions because of there overwhelmingly bad reviews, but as I loved and read the book, I felt that it would be very difficult to adapt for the screen. As someone else mentioned, much of the humor is in Austen's wonderful narration and frequent side comments to her readers. Also, the work is a parody of two genres not well known anymore: the "innocent girl enters society" novels of writers like Frances Burney, and the original Gothic novel as typefied by Anne Radcliffe. Even for readers of the book, it is disjointing when the parody switches genres halfway through when Catherine leaves Bath for Northanger Abbey.

Luckily, the film adaptors handled it masterfully, disregarding most of the parodying of Burney-type works for a consistant ribbing of gothic fiction played out in Catherine's over-acted fantasy scenes based on the novels she is reading, which also serve to familiarize the modern viewer with the genre being lampooned.

The only serious problem is roles Catherine is romanticizing in her fantasies. Catherine seems to fantasize about her abductors and captors, giving excited and inviting looks to the imaginary robber as he fondles her gold necklace, and grinning rapturously at her prison guard before fainting into his arms. This is not what Gothic heroines do, at least not the one's Catherine idolizes. What they seem to have missed is that there were two genres of Gothic fiction going on at this time. In Anne Radcliffe's books, the books that Jane Austen actually shows Catherine reading, rape and seduction constant threats, but are never successfully perpetrated, or at least never on the main characters. Villains are never glamorized, and in fact exist only to put the heroines in situations from which they need to be rescued by their real love interests. Their popularity stemmed from the "savior-on-a-white-horse" fantasy.

At the same time, books like "The Monk" and "Tom Jones" were being written by a different set of authors, in a different style, for a different audience. In novels like these, the villains are the main characters, raping and seducing their way through the novels in scenes described in intentionally erotic and provocative language. Though the characters are punished in the end, there are definite elements of sadomasochism, and no nice young lady would let herself be caught reading them. These two genres are sometimes called the "female" and "male" Gothic, because the more innocent novels were often written by women with female protagonists and aimed at a female audience, while the gender was reversed in the second type. (It is unknown how many women read works like "The Monk," but we have evidence that there were a lot more men reading works like "Udolpho" than society perceived.)

Jane Austen would never write a protagonist who would read such novels, nor one who would fixate her desires on her abductor rather than her rescuer. In fact, John Thorpe's relish of "The Monk" and the fact that he would actually recommend it to young lady is yet another clue that he is not a good or proper young man, since he enjoys that book in the first place, and in the second, does not realize how improper it is to tell Catherine to read it. Catherine is too naive to pick up on this, but Austen's readers at the time would have.

Not that this is something the movie should have portrayed (it's way too subtle and not really central to the plot), but it would have been much truer to simply portray scenes from the books she actually is portrayed reading and had her looking at the heroes with desire. It's not true to the book, or the time, or Catherine's character, and seems a really cheap way to add edginess to what is among Austen's most innocent stories.

But it's a minor issue that only the over-educated would probably catch. Overall, it's wonderfully written, skillfully acted, and beautifully shot. The humor is note-perfect, and let me conclude by saying that I'm now even more in love with Henry Tilney than I was when I read the book, and that his actor not only captured his charm and wit perfectly, but is extremely nice to look at besides.

I absolutely love this adaptation, but I am disappointed that there are missing scenes in the DVD such as Mrs. Allen and Catherine in the tearoom, Catherine's bathtub fantasy, and Miss Tilney and Catherine's conversation to name a few. Though they were short scenes that don't take away from the overall plot, I expected to get the entire movie for what I paid for. I still love the DVD, but I didn't expect to miss parts from the movie.

Not a bad production, cast nicely, lovely scenery, costumes and easy to understand story, but not as true to the book as it could be. A bit too short, for one thing. The scene about the umbrellas is missing, some parts are condensed, to make room for others not in the book, like Cathy's gothic musings and reading raunchy passages from books, or the bedroom scene between Isabella and the Captain. Lots of cleaveage, too. And tossing Lord Byron in the mix was so ridiculous. Not enough time covered in Bath, nor at the Abbey, though this version did add a few quick scenes of other parts added in. The best part...Cathy finding the scrolls of paper in a hidden drawer of a Japaned chest is left out. Instead she finds large lists in an old chest by the bed. So, if you have read the book, you realize a lot was condensed, changed about and not quite in order. Better than the recent Persuasion production, but not as gothic in feel as the Northanger Abbey of the 1980's.

A fantastic adaptation of Austen's novel, I originally caught the ending on PBS, went to YouTube to find the rest, and eventually had to purchase it when it came out on DVD. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the YouTube version was the original full version while the DVD/pbs version has some scenes edited out. I especially missed one scene where Henry, Eleanor, and Catherine go out apple picking. Overall I am happy with the adaptation I just wish I had known beforehand about the cut scenes. Perhaps I would've gotten the Region 2 DVD which I'm pretty sure is not cut.