{"id":14729,"date":"2022-07-16T11:23:59","date_gmt":"2022-07-16T11:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/?p=14729"},"modified":"2022-07-18T02:25:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T02:25:19","slug":"persuasion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/persuasion\/","title":{"rendered":"Persuasion"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The major problem with this treatment of Jane Austen\u2019s last novel is that the writers and the director give Anne a contemporary attitude while abiding by the misogynistic societal rules of the times. British, first-time feature director, Carrie Cracknell, seems to have made it more a romantic comedy than a love story. And that does not compute. Cinematographer Joe Anderson creates beautiful imagery of the countryside, the well-appointed mansions, seashore, as well as Anne (Dakota Johnson), but that\u2019s not enough to carry the story.<\/p>\n

Writers Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow constantly, intentionally have Anne break the 4th wall giving the audience sideways glances and directly addressing viewers. It was cute for awhile, but became labored and slightly annoying. Having Johnson as Anne narrate what she\u2019s thinking out loud would have been more effective, giving her character more depth. Johnson is certainly strikingly beautiful as a mature damsel who keeps emotions repressed one moment but goes for light comedy in the next. Not sure if it was from direction or her own characterization.\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”14735″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”14732″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”14737″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]family thought he was below her station, without wealth or rank. She was so in love with Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) and still pines for him every day. When he returns as a decorated Naval Officer, sparks reignite, but are repressed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From then on, there is a lot of misdirection involving the wealthy, handsome scoundrel of a cousin, Mr. Elliott, (Henry Golding), and her family\u2019s ludicrous meddling. Wentworth is still hurting from her earlier rejection. Anne\u2019s sisters don\u2019t help.\u00a0 <\/span>Anne is humble, quiet and the most patient of the bunch. Sister Mary is a narcissistic, self-indulgent, controlling, needy mess. We had trouble understanding her. She talks under her breath so fast, you can\u2019t understand what she\u2019s saying, not that you want to.\u00a0 <\/span>We kept hoping that someone (her husband or Anne) would put Mary in her place. If it was done for comedy, it doesn\u2019t work. She became utterly and painfully annoying.<\/p>\n

Anne\u2019s father, Sir Walter Elliot, (Richard E. Grant) doesn\u2019t help. He\u2019s another narcissist with portraits of himself all over their house. He\u2019s the prime example of the inequality and unfairness of British society that places access to privilege and wealth in genealogy instead of talent and hard work. Austen made that point by showing how this idiot of a father squandered the family fortune. Grant\u2019s performances are always good, but here, he is so outrageous that he loses being a comedic character. He may have had fun prancing and preening, but we didn\u2019t have fun watching him play this pain-in-the-ass.\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”14738″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”14733″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”14736″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Grant\u2019s character is so unlike Captain Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) who is patient and quiet. You can see he longs for Anne, but was spurned and still wary. You also get a sense of Anne\u2019s frustration at their platonic reconnection when she says, \u201cWe\u2019re worse than exes, we\u2019re friends.\u201d It sounds a little too contemporary for this period piece. But there is even more incongruous dialogue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The climax and the ending wrap up way too fast and much too conveniently. But that\u2019s not the only problem with this film. Playing with the 4th wall, injecting contemporary comic dialogue and even at what should have been the emotional high point, it fails to produce one sincere heart tug. Not terribly excited to persuade you to see this one.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Netflix \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>1 Hour 47 Minutes\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>PG<\/i><\/b>[\/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Fz7HmgPJQak” el_width=”80″ align=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The major problem with this treatment of Jane Austen\u2019s last novel is that the writers and the director give Anne a contemporary attitude while abiding by the misogynistic societal rules of the times. British, first-time feature director, Carrie Cracknell, seems to have made it more a romantic comedy than a love story. And that does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14739,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14729"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14741,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14729\/revisions\/14741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}