Of the Modern Persuasion

This evening my sister and I sat down at my computer, window ajar and early autumn breeze filtering in, after a long workday and nightfall, to watch the newest adaptation of Persuasion on Netflix.

During my late teens I was fond of the book Persuasion, because it spoke to my feeling of being 'on the shelf' because of unattractiveness, not having many perspectives or options in life given that my school grades weren't always great and I didn't feel convinced I was going to be able to go to university, and of trying to develop fine qualities in obscurity. But the romance with Captain Wentworth was never really my favourite part of it; he seems like an immature character compared to the heroine, a bit superficial, and pretty arrogant. And I guess I've always liked Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightley best of all Jane Austen's heroes. (Although when I was twelve, I did like Edmund in Mansfield Park. It sounded so nice to be cared for by someone through childhood into adult years; now of course he just comes across as a little morally inconsistent and not entirely the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to reading character.)

Since then I've temporarily gained a more cheerful outlook on life. I read Jane Austen's books so often as a child and teenager that for a while I could almost quote Pride and Prejudice passage for passage, so it's a little difficult to re-read them now without feeling a threadbare familiarity. But based on recollections of the book at least, I sympathize more with the Elizabeth Bennet mindset again: I'll enjoy friends and family and books and music all I like, stay single if there's no good alternative, and thumb my nose at social expectations and self-serving prudence. [Edit: So I don't feel embarrassed about writing that paragraph when rereading it in a few years: 1. No, I don't think I'm like a fictional character; and 2. 'no good alternative' is not a withering indictment of what humanity has to offer. It's just a statement that it feels worthwhile to hold out for an especially good relationship (not just any relationship).]

The Netflix adaptation of Persuasion is far removed from the spirit of Jane Austen's book. Anne Elliot is made over into the sort of college-educated, literature-loving, self-admiring, self-proclaimed sophisticate who finds hardship icky and generally ends up living quite happily off her parents and then the fruits of a university education into which she has slid thanks to the momentum of well-financed primary schooling. Of course women did not attend university in the early 1800s, so this analogy is artistic license. The loss of Captain Wentworth, when she is persuaded as a younger woman not to marry him, carries all the emotional depth of forgetting a pair of sunglasses in a car's glove compartment.

Captain Wentworth, in the book, knows when Elizabeth Elliot is being snobby, when Mary is being selfish, and so on and so forth; and it's not his most lovable quality that instead of feeling sorry for them, he seems to despise them. But in the film, Anne takes over this role and more; she telegraphs with every arched eyebrow at the viewer how much better she feels than her family. In the book, they are all she has left after the death of her mother, and through the rural isolation and shyness that leave her few friends; and she would never behave rudely toward them.

It has been written elsewhere, and is totally true in my opinion as well, that in Netflix's adaptation Louisa and Captain Wentworth, Anne and Mr. Elliot, have far better chemistry with each other, than with their putative true love interests. It's a daring choice that Anne Elliot and Mr. Elliot are kept as cousins in the film when any romantic tendency there is now widely considered squicky, but the film also I think uses it to play up Mr. Elliot's streak of moral perversion.

Having Anne caress a big speckled white bunny rabbit as what I presume is a heavy symbolic hint that despite the early 19th century setting and her virgin status, she was far from uninterested in sex, was a little unsubtle. It also made me feel bad for the rabbit.

We may question the modern paraffin candles and machine-smooth wine bottles, the acting, the terrifying lack of chemistry, the mid-19th century table grapes. I may be disgusted by the synthetic emotions of the 'romances' and think that anyone above the age of fifteen who's experienced heartbreak stronger than that of breaking a nail or losing a smartphone off the side of a boat has already psychologically outgrown the film.

But the scenes of Lyme were beautifully filmed. Kellynch Hall and Uppercross were lovely even if the choice to write the place names across the screen in modern font to signal when we were switching settings made me think that the director should go back to film school or stick to filming tourism videos.

Even the weird choice of Edwardian shirtwaist outfit for Anne symbolized the way her family was treating her like a maid, so I didn't dislike the costume design as others did despite acknowledging the anachronisms. I still have no explanation for the outfit where she wears a French beret, however.

Besides I did like Richard E. Grant's performance, amongst others. Thanks to these and other elements, the film had energy and élan.

Still I guess it's depressing that it is so easy to take the real-life plight of many fine-minded, quiet and disadvantaged people also in the world today — and make out of it a film that celebrates wallowing in moral superiority and shallow intellectual snobbery.