Persuasion modernizes Jane Austen for a new generation — but does it lack sense and sensibility?
CBC
Like the dreamy yearnings of a Jane Austen heroine, Dakota Johnson has always wanted to act in a period film set in the English countryside. So the actress — known best for her lead role in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy — jumped at the chance to star as Anne Elliot in Netflix's adaptation of Persuasion, Austen's final novel.
"When I read the script for Persuasion, the modernized language, the modern take, breaking the fourth wall was so much fun to read," Johnson told CBC News. "It made me feel like as a viewer, as an audience member ... it was accessible to me."
Not everyone feels the same, as Johnson readily acknowledges: Fans have criticized the film adaptation for using modern expressions, slang and tone, all while being set in the early 19th century.
"I am still in disbelief over what a trainwreck it was," wrote one online reviewer. "I'm not sure what it is, but it isn't Austen," said another. Critics from Vanity Fair, the New York Times and Slate have all echoed the same sentiment: It's Persuasion for the Instagram era, and it's not very good.
So how does one adapt Jane Austen for a modern audience? CBC News spoke with writers and scholars — all Austen superfans — who said maintaining the author's spirit onscreen goes far beyond setting or style.
Persuasion, like the other five of Austen's complete novels, is set during the Regency period — a short era in early 19th-century British history often romanticized for artistic, social and cultural movements, especially among the English aristocratic class.
Heroine Anne Elliot, heartbroken and bored seven years after her family persuaded her to end her relationship with Capt. Frederick Wentworth — deemed unsuitable for his lack of status — has met him again by chance.
In the 2022 adaptation, Persuasion's plot points and setting in Bath, England, remain, but Johnson's Anne speaks to her modern audience by breaking the fourth wall and peppering her dialogue with present-day lingo.
"Now we're worse than strangers. We're exes," Anne laments of Wentworth. When she feels sad, she pulls out a box of keepsakes that remind her of him, such as a stack of sheet music he left for her, which she calls a "playlist."
These contemporary quirks aren't limited to the protagonist. The Elliot family discuss their ratings of attractive men: "a five in London" is the equivalent to "a 10 in Bath." Anne describes her younger sister, Mary, as a "total narcissist" — and Mary describes herself as an "empath."
It's in this spirit that the film presents Jane Austen to a new audience, but the writer doesn't need to be simplified in order for younger generations to appreciate her, said Robert Morrison, an Austen scholar and British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University in England.
"The argument would be, 'Well, look, we want to make her modern. We want to make sure contemporary readers understand her. We want to make sure that this movie that we put a lot of time and money into can be understood,'" said Morrison, a Canadian academic and writer who's also the Queen's National Scholar at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.
"But Austen is not Shakespeare; I don't think that it's that inaccessible."
In Austen's 1813 classic Pride and Prejudice, the male romantic interest, Mr. Darcy, tells Elizabeth Bennett that he can no longer stay away from her: "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed," he says.
