Persuasion on Netflix

[Tiddlywinkly]

Netflix has made Jane Austen boring. I can't get on board with it. It feels slow. I think the lead guy is really wooden too.

Thank you to everyone who mentioned the 2007 version as I watched it last night. Much better than this Netflix version, however, not as good as as the Amanda Root/Ciaran Hinds version.

I thought Rupert was an excellent Wentworth, (except for his complexion, he’s not rugged enough for a Captain).
Also, I thought Anthony Head verged on caricature with his Sir Walter.

Thank you for the warning - I'd been planning to watch it, but will watch Emma instead.

Dreadful film. And I usually like Dakota and find her an interesting actress…the guy who played Wentworth was awful.

what a disappointment

I hate it when they mess with Austen's plots and dialogue.

Nobody wrote better dialogue. You can take your script directly from the books. Every part of the plot is essential - every situation, every word, tells you something about the characters. She might look wordy, but it's like "Better Call Saul" - stuff might look inessential, but it's not - it all plays in to the storyline.

By all means re-make her books but PLEASE - don't change to scripts unless it's ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to make it more "filmable" (eg needing to combine characters if there are too many for clarity on screen).

And get good and appropriate actors, please - make them believable.

I appreciate that these stories (and Dickens, and to a lesser extent Trollope) are such good tales that they have been "done to death", and I realise that every producer etc wants to try to make it original and put their stamp on them - but please don't . . . 🙁

"Nobody wrote better dialogue. You can take your script directly from the books. Every part of the plot is essential - every situation, every word, tells you something about the characters. She might look wordy, but it's like "Better Call Saul" - stuff might look inessential, but it's not - it all plays in to the storyline."

This with bells on! It's what I said when I watched the Amanda Root / Ciaran Hinds version (to purge this latest one) - there were lines directly from the book. Perfect lines, no need whatsoever to mess with them.

Amanda Root is a queen. Why don't we see more of her. She was fantastic in the Forsyte Saga remake.

If you watch it as a Bridgerton-style rom com, and forget that Jane Austen has anything to do with it, it’s OK.

Yep. It's awful. I find I don't make it to the end of a lot of Netflix stuff lately.

Agreed.

I could see the boardroom of people saying "what we need is fleabag meets period drama, what could go wrong!?"

Some adaptations have already been done so well that it seems pointless to continue remaking them. The 1995 version of Persuasion is a good example, along with the BBC’s adaptation of P&P. I agree with others here that the hairstyles were distractingly inaccurate for the period (among other things) and if they’re going to change the entire character why bother at all?

If they were going to modernise it...go the whole hog and do a Clueless...which is one of my favourite films.

Thinking about the whole plot, it’s quite similar in some ways to P&P - feckless father who has failed to provide for his daughters (in the absence of a worried wife). Mary has married down and clings to her status as a baronet’s daughter. Elizabeth seems wilfully blind. Anne tried to marry completely out but has squashed back in to her designated role of being good enough for the duty of looking out for the problems of parishioners and tenants but not equivalent to Elizabeth.
A father running out of money, an entailed estate - they should be cheering Mrs Clay on and hoping for a stepbrother!