Film Review- Persuasion (1995)

I first read Persuasion, by Jane Austen about twelve years ago, and though I knew about this film version back then, it took me until just recently to see it. In the meantime Ciaran Hinds, who plays the romantic male lead, Capt. Frederick Wentworth, has become a much more familiar face, but even in this earlier work his acting chops are obvious. The problem with men in Jane Austen's novels is that they tend to be sort of stock characters; good, bad, brooding, fortune-seekers, snobs, indulgent fathers, but a few men get to be really conflicted. I sometimes think Persuasion would have been more interesting as told from Capt. Wentworth's point of view, as he tries to throw himself into his life on the high seas and forget about the daughter of a wealthy landowner who refuses his proposal. He returns to England after the defeat of Napoleon only to run into her again, and realizes he's not over her at all. It's an Austen novel, so of course it has a happy ending.

The actual story, however, is told from the woman, Anne Elliott's, point of view. Anne wanted to marry him, she loved him, but a nosy though well-meaning family friend persuaded (and keeps persuading) her not to. Quiet, obliging, a little on the older side, Anne does what's best for everyone else, which almost gets her married to the wrong man. Amanda Root does a great job with an essentially very straight-forward character. She's not a gorgeous Hollywood actress, and she does look a little bit older than our usual Emma, Jane, or Marianne "Austen heroines". I liked it. In fact, Persuasion may be my favorite Austen novel of all, because it suggests that it's never too late to find happiness, and that mousy people can learn to stand up for themselves and make the life that they want. Root shows all the patient suffering of a woman faced with the man she lost, watching him seem to move on. She looks simultaneously peeved and resigned that no one seems to think of her unless it's to get rid of her, and watching her play peace-maker between fractious relatives is humorous and sympathetic.

The lovely settings of the seaside, Bath, and the country all make for diverting and pleasant backdrops. The costumes are perfect, in that they aren't too luxurious, some of the diversity within uniforms is shown, and characters are more fully-rendered through what they wear. Our heroine is never too pretty, she shouldn't be, and yet she never looks shabby or ugly either, with a careful restraint in color that is bumped up towards the end.

A pleasant movie and an easy-to-read book, I recommend both to young and old alike.

Film Review- To the Ends of the Earth

I am a huge fan of the BBC series Sherlock, which is an updated version of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, of which I have also been a fan since early childhood. So when I saw that the 2005 miniseries, "To the Ends of the Earth", likewise starred Benedict Cumberbatch ("Amazing Grace", "Atonement", "The Other Boleyn Girl") I had a feeling I was going to like it.

Almost the entire movie is set in 1812 onboard an old navy ship that has been recomissioned as a passenger vessel voyaging between England and Austrailia. Not only has the vessel been recomissioned, but much of the crew is also taken from the British Navy, and they and the passengers have at times very tense relationships. The miniseries is based on a trilogy of books by William Golding, who also helped to write the screenplay, and was directed by David Attwood, who seems to have a fondness for English stories (Hound of the Baskervilles, Moll Flanders, Tales of Sherwood Forest).

Cumberbatch stars as our protagonist, Edmund Talbot, a very young aristocrat whose godfather has sent him to Australia to take up an administrative post there which should guarantee him a life of comfort and advancement. The journey serves as a conduit for the growth of Talbot into manhood, in more ways than one.

"Benedict was remarkable. He carried the Golding novels with him on set and constantly referred to them. We needed him every single day and he just didn't stop, nor complain. He simply became Edmund Talbot. And that commitment spread to every cast member. The process of making this film echoed the journey the characters went on in the story—we really got to know each other during our four months on location and we became very close." Commented the show's producer, Lynn Horsford.

The other characters are a motley crew of artists, philosophers, fallen women, families, and a clergyman. They suffer death, the prospect of having to fight the French, fire, illness, ice, and possible mutiny, and that's just some of the adventure. There's also love, sex, fighting, suicide and the kind of cabin fever that we are blissfully inexperienced in today.

On top of stellar preformances by the entire cast (and I mean everybody), the thing that I found truly wonderful about this series was how unpredictable it was. Everytime I thought I knew what was coming it turned out to be something else, which in retrospect was perfectly plausible. It also left nothing off-limits, and even the seediest, most disgusting details that the passengers experienced were documented by young Edmund in his journal.

The best part, for me, came at the end when a fellow passenger, realizing that to Edmund this has been the penultimate experience , says "It was just...a series of events." Just as after the wedding that closes many a Jane Austen novel there is still an entire marriage to be had, after the voyage there is a life.