This would be better described as inspired by the Jane Austen novel, as it is not a faithful adaptation of it. To keep length down it focuses on the central love story and the theme of slavery, to the exclusion of many other important aspects of this long novel. Harold Pinter is interesting as Sir Thomas and many parts are acted well. Frances O'Connor is witty, vivacious and sexy - ie, she is not Fanny Price. ( )

Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors and I love many of the adaptations: I adore the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice, the Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility, the Gweneth Paltrow Emma and the 2007 Northanger Abbey with Geraldine James and Michael Judd in lead roles. This adaptation? Not so much.

Admittedly Mansfield Park is my least favorite of Austen's novels--I'm not alone in that--it's atypical in several ways. Ironically though, I found I couldn't forgive this because it was so unfaithful to the original. Maybe I would have liked it more had I never read the book? But the film tries to fix the rather meek and prim Fanny Price by injecting a lot of the young Jane Austen in her--making her have ambitions to write and giving her lines from letters and juvenalia. I just couldn't reconcile this witty and spirited version of Fanny with the original. And strangely, that rather reduced the point and courage of her sticking to her principles. (And the film takes another liberty in that regard that made me squirm.) ( )

2008