"Mansfield Park" (1999 movie)

[Lady Serendipity]

I just viewed this for the first time. I quite enjoyed it, and felt like I was watching a comPLETEly different story than the recent Billie Piper version.

I do understand that the plot and the characters both represent a departure from JA's originals, but for the love of a decently done "costume drama", I can overlook that.

If they were going to take liberteries, however, couldn't they have made Edmund a little more....interesting?! That was the *one* strength of the Billie Price version...quite a cute Edmund, haha!

[savivi]

I have to agree! Despite the inconsistencies with the novel (which used to be my favorite, but I've stopped doing that because I can't decide) I found that I LOVE it. I think it had me with the music, especially the carriage scenes.

The major difference is Fanny's character. In the novel, she's really meek, obedient, but also with strong values, and takes the course of events quietly, internalizing everything. I would always tear up when stuff would happen to her, like Mary using her pony.

The movie Fanny, I enjoyed her spunk -- and how everything she wrote happened to be Jane Austen's much earlier work (I LOVE LOVE LOVE the story about the two couples in the carriage ride - it's forever one of the funniest images for me. Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint.)

I agree about Edmund, though! I found him to be a ninny, rather than an oblivious, dear friend. But holy moly, the carriage ride back to Masnfield Park.... one of my favorite scenes ever.

And I know that a lot of people had some issues with the slave trade spin -- but in the novel, there's a brief mention of Fanny's interest in the subject -- I don't think we ever learn what that interest is, because she's too timid to bring it up.

But it represented the similar situation many women were (are) in -- how your only worth is to be bought and sold like cattle, hopefully to a man who doesn't view you that way.

I'm sorry they didn't have William in it, though I understood they had to consolidate characters. But I had a crush on William in highschool. Siiiiigh.

[Miss Emily Louise]

Although I love Jonny Lee Miller as Edmund (and Mr. Knightley in Emma), I was really disappointed with the inconsistencies in the movie.

I thought the bit where Fanny excepts Crawford was deplorable. I thought it was dream at first, which would have been, not ideal, but acceptable... Then I found out that it wasn't a dream... I thought that it was probably the worst scene not in a book, but adapted into the movie...the worst.

I did think to myself: "For once, just once, is it too much to ask to have one movie adaptation, just one, that does not throw superfluous, unnecessary, idiotic, stupid, never-occurring in the book scenes that add next to nothing to plot just to make it a bit more, what some may say although I would refute it whole-heartedly, "entertaining," a word I am almost completely disgusted with and sick of hearing?

It grieves me sorely that this is what we have come to: ruining classic, and might I add brilliant, novels by scenes in a movie not even worth your time to see twice, once is beyond more than enough.

I did, however, really enjoy the 2007 version with Blake Ritson, who I think is a better Edmund then Mr. Elton. I thought he was a cute Edmund, and Fanny was adorable as well.

That is only my opinion on the movie, I hope you enjoy hearing another opinion!