Persuasion : Complete ITV Adaptation [2007] [DVD]

SPOILER ALERT: I'm from the U.S. and being an Austen fan, last week, I stumbled into the Jane Austen ITV season on YouTube. The next day (9/11/07) I ordered Persuasion online because I was falling in love with the fanvideos I was seeing. To prepare myself for the new adaptation, I watched Persuasion (1995) over the weekend like 4 times. I tend to do this to get every detail of the film and emotions of the characters.Well, my DVD of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey arrived 9/17th and that same evening, I watched it 4x!! I must say that "I LOVE THIS MOVIE MORE THAN THE 1995 VERSION AND PRIDE & PREJUDICE (BOTH VERSIONS)!!As someone previosly mentioned, I loved how Anne narrates her journal so that we can understand her feelings towards Cpt. Frederick Wentworth more, as well as her regrets (her narration is part of the novel). I feel for her when she cries alone and then tries to be strong when Frederick is near, talks, and shows affection towards another (or so it seems). Sally Hawkins did a superb job when emotions really needed to be shown!As for Frederick, I loved that the writers decided to consolidate and reserved some of the dialogues spoken by characters in the 1995 version FOR FREDERICK (some as spoken from the novel by Frederick that was not included in the 1995 version!). Excellent idea because we get to see and hear Frederick in more scenes. Austen fans can not complain about that because Rupert Penry Jones (RPJ) as Frederick was excellent! RPJ did a great job as Frederick as a man who held so much bitterness and constraint from the past that in the end, he realized how foolish he was at the present because he realized that he still could not deny himself from always loving Anne. . .**sigh** Also, both scenes with Frederick and Captain Harville was a breath of fresh air because we get to know Frederick more of a person than just a handsome bachelor. We get to know his own thoughts and feelings of a man who is indeed in agony over the possibility of losing Anne AGAIN - this time, to fault all his own(information noted at the end of the novel BUT not included in the 1995 version)! I can play those scenes over and over again. For the 1995 version, I thought that there were not enough scenes with Frederick to fully know him. We only got to know him through the "letter". Thus, my review on Frederick is longer.Yes, I agree that Anne running at the end was a bit "odd" for a woman during that period BUT she was on a mission to get her man - it has been 8 years after all :) The kiss that followed took forever so I didn't like it at all. However, I LOVED THE ENDING! I was happy that Frederick bought Kellynch as a wedding present for Anne because he knew how much Anne loved Kellynch! Besides, in the novel, Mr. Elliot was going to put it up for auction anyway! Anne overwhelmed with happines that she jumps Frederick for a hug and then the kiss, that was AWESOME!! Both laughing and giggling (and a slight slow dance) is how happiness should be portrayed for this adaptation! That's way better than Anne and Frederick smiling at each other on a boat without holding hands as directed from 1995's version!This is a NEW adaptation and I think that it would of been ridiculous to completely copy the 1995 version so I am FULLY SATISFIED! I commend the writers for going this route! Sally Hawkins was brilliant and RPJ was execellent. Plus, RPJ is simply gorgeous!! 90 minutes was not enough for me. I wanted more Anne Elliot & Cpt. Wentworth - in the same scenes that is :)

I had read the book many years ago and when I heard that there was to be a new Jane Austen series, I re-read it and the others and Persuasion took a very definite first place.As to this TV version, first time round I loved it and I have found, on repeat viewing only very recently, that it was even better than I remembered. I thoroughly enjoyed the settings, the music and particularly, the two lead performances which I think were thoroughly convincing. Of the supporting roles, I thought Anthony Head was magnificently arch and enjoyable shallow and horrible as Sir Walter, Sam Hazeldine bumbling, delightful and sweet (especially in his relations with Anne which are so kind and redolent, on his part, of what might have been) and I must be the only person who thought that Mary Musgrove was just exactly as she should have been! Peter White is a great favourite of mine so I loved his bluff yet gentle Admiral. The pacing was odd, I admit, presumably because of the time constraints and like everyone else, I would have liked all of the letter-not just because the written version is so beautiful but because I thought Rupert Penry-Jones' voice-over was absolutely perfect. There's a little subtle break in his voice half way through that gets me every time. The scene in the shop was also wonderful-he, in particular, showed so much by doing so little. There was a real feeling of strong feelings ruthlessly repressed because he was so afraid of being hurt again. I think Anne was beautifully played by Sally Hawkins and she looked just right. At the start she was obviously depressed but determined to live the best life she could. Then, at the end, she realised she had another chance to live the life she really wanted and gathered every ounce of strength of character she had to grab it with both hands. That was the symbolism of the running for me.As to RPJ looking too young and unweathered for a sea captain, in reality, that's probably true but the whole point about Austen's description of him is that he had lost none of what she called his (this may be in the wrong order!) "open, glowing, manly" look in the eight years he and Anne had been apart. And even her vain, looks-obsessed father who castigated all sailors because they supposedly looked rough, had to admit eventually that Captain Wentworth was an exception. RPJ had that in spades, as well as the depth of feeling for a role where so much is under the surface. I thought he was wonderful in it and that he and Sally Hawkins created something touching to the contemporary mind, yet absolutely in keeping with the original, of a relationship that nearly didn't make it.As to "the kiss", it wasn't the chocolate-box romanticism that many accuse modern visual productions of overlaying on Austen-it was hesitant, full of both fear and longing, human, messy and completely believable. The sunlit ending at Kellynch, I think, was symbolic of pent-up longing fulfilled in every way, which is really the point of the entire book, and I loved it.I've even loved writing this about it!

Nicely told newer version of one of Austen's better novels. Lovely scenes of Bath. My only complaint, as with the '90s version, is that several small but important details are omitted. Helps if you've read the book.

Me encanto el desarrollo de la historia. Si bien, es una adaptación, me parece que está bien lograda. El audio está en inglés y los subtítulos únicamente en el mismo idioma, si como en mi caso, no hay tema con este detalle, la recomiendo ampliamente!! La veo mil veces en estos días de lluvia con un delicioso té!

EUREKA! I have found it. I have found the key word.The key word is ENJOY!I ENJOY being alive. I ENJOY breathing the air. I ENJOY being able to sleep, to dream, to think, to write. I ENJOY reading books. And I especially ENJOY writing personally-revealing reviews of personally-revealing books that ignite the imagination and send the mind flying!OK. OK. Enough about me. What about you?Why might you want to read Jane Austen's "Persuasion"?Why, to ENJOY the book of course!OK. Very good. But why stop there? Why stop at the ENJOYMENT of reading the book? Why not let your mind go beyond the ENJOYMENT of reading the book? Why not keep going until you arrive at the ECSTASY of seeing, hearing, experiencing something imaginary, something ideal, something unreal, as if it were really happening right here, right now, in real life?Sounds great! But how?By bringing the book to life in your mind.Yes. Yes. Yes. But how? How??By seeing the 2007 movie “Persuasion,” starring Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones, BEFORE reading the book. That's how.I did see/hear the movie BEFORE I read the book. And I'm glad I did.As I read the book, the movie kept coming back to life in my mind.In addition, the book revealed -- in depth and in detail -- all of those seemingly minor thoughts, feelings, and incidents that did not make their way into the movie.By means of the written word, a book can open a character's heart and mind to the reader. By means of voice-over, a movie can do the same kind of thing. But not to the EXTENT that a book can.Be that as it may, whatever the movie may lack in such EXTENT is made up for, many times over, by the movie's astounding EFFECT.Indeed, insofar as EFFECT goes, there is something in the movie that surpasses anything and everything in the book; in any other book I have ever read; and in any other movie I have ever seen.That extraordinary "something" that I am raving about is the kiss scene. Not just the kiss, mind you. The scene!(Not to mention the love letter -- and the race against time -- leading up to the kiss scene.)In that kiss scene, a moment of time becomes an eternity of bliss. The infinity of space shrinks to nothing. Nothing except! Nothing except a small warm pocket of space wherein there is room enough for only two human beings, two people, a man and a woman, this man and this woman. Each is the whole world of the other.What will become a kiss evolves and revolves between the two of them, binary stars, paired, gradually encircling one another, beyond the reach of all the universe that is not their own. It is just the two of them. Nothing more. Nothing less.Try as I may, I cannot tell you in words. The book cannot tell you in words. You have to see the movie to believe it. Seeing it, hearing it, you will believe it, even though it is nothing but make-believe."Nothing but make-believe"??? What a thing to say!!!As if make-believe were of little or no value. A next to nothing sort of thing. A waste of time! of money!! of life itself!!!OK. OK. I stand corrected. How dare I down-talk make-believe!Let me slow down here, stop, and ask myself a couple of questions:1. What would thinking be like without the make-believe of imagination?2. What would life be like without the make-believe of dreaming?Those two questions have these two answers:1. We cannot think without imagining.2. Nor can we live without dreaming.So, no more down-talking make-believe. Not by me anyway.OK. Agreed.Now that's settled, I can turn my back on things that do not interest me, and return to what does -- i.e., "Persuasion" -- book and movie.Much as I much prefer books to movies, the "Persuasion" movie of 2007 is exceptional. So exceptional that, if I had to choose one over the other, either the book or the movie, I would choose the movie.By the grace of good fortune, however, I don't have to choose between the two. For, I have both: the movie and the book.Each is excellent. Both are superb. And the two together are scintillatingly synergistic.When push comes to shove, however, my mind must admit, and my heart must confess, that, to my way of thinking and feeling, the movie is even better than the book, simply because of the kiss scene.That kiss scene is so good, so well done, so realistic, so believable, that I believe it to be real, even though it is make-believe.Is believing in make-believe such a bad thing? I think not.Speaking of thinking, consider this:Once you have seen/heard the love letter, the race against time, the kiss scene, and the other scenes in the movie, you can replay them in your mind by conducting "search and enjoy" missions: just pick up the book; flip to the juiciest pages; and read to your heart's content.What could be easier? What could be more enjoyable?? Certainly not the realities of everyday life. Ugh! Why get into that when you can get into this: a good book.

The photo on the website shows the Rupert Penry-Jones version but the description had the names and date of the version I wanted, with Ann Firbank and Bryan Marshall, 1971. I could find no other versions. I had hoped that the description was correct and the photo wrong. But alas it was the incorrect version. I went through the requirements to send it back but at this time of pandemic the post office did not accept the parcel for posting.

Persuasione è l'ultimo romanzo di Jane Austen, il più breve, il più maturo e forse il più intenso. E' stato portato sullo schermo al cinema negli anni '90, questa è la trasposizione più recente, particolarmente intensa. E' assolutamente in soggettiva, il punto di vista di Anne Elliot è totalmente predominante. Ci mette a parte persino dei suoi pensieri più intimi, rendendoci partecipi dei suoi sentimenti e delle sue emozioni mentre li fissa sul suo diario personale. Solo lo spettatore e lei sanno cosa prova e come la realtà circostante la tocchi profondamente, mentre riesce ad essere sempre così apparentemente distante e talvolta indifferente, pur rimanendo sincera, con i personaggi che entrano in contatto con lei. Visivamente è molto impattante lo sguardo che fissa sull'obiettivo per comunicare con lo spettatore, a sottolineare i momenti più rilevanti della storia. Bravi gli attori (una menzione particolare al bel Rupert Penry-Jones, e naturalmente alla bravissima Sally Hawkins, anche se gli altri attori non sono da meno), belle le ambientazioni e i costumi, ma soprattutto un elogio alla colonna sonora di Martin Phipps (North and South e Sense and Sensibility del 2008), che sottolinea ed esalta i momenti più emozionanti del film, coinvolgendo totalmente lo spettatore. In lingua inglese con sottotitoli in inglese.