Story: Eight years after she was persuaded not to marry him for his lack of rank and fortune, Anne Elliot (Dakota Johnson) meets Captain Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) once again. Can love stand the test of time and social constraints? Based on Jane Austen's last completed novel, Persuasion tells the story of a second chance with the one that got away.
Review: No unbreathable corsets, no Bridgerton cleavage, freedom of speech for women and relatively lesser boy crazy moms and daughters are a welcome change in this cheeky retelling of Austen classic. Set in the Austen era with thought and language aligned to contemporary times, the reboot is interesting, until it starts struggling to strike a balance between the past and present. The story is in sync with its original source material but the treatment is wildly quirky to the point that it ceases to be Austen’s Persuasion. Creative liberty works as long as the adaptation doesn’t rip off the substance and sentiment of the celebrated novel. The film falters drastically in that department but scores on humour.
Speaking of humour, though delightful, Dakota Johnson is no Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Persuasion is anything but Fleabag. Blend the two and you get this instalment. Carrie Cracknell’s audacious adaptation gives Jane Austen’s most poignant work, (her last novel) a cheeky Fleabag makeover. ‘Marriage is transactional for women. We need to secure our future.’ It questions Austen’s idealistic take on love, while respecting it. The middle ground situation is odd though. Persuasion embodied the everlasting aspect of love. It being muddled by millennial mantras like ‘move on’ and ‘get over it’ feels blasphemous.
If that wasn’t enough, expect Anne Elliot to pout, preen and smirk straight into the camera, proud of her own wisecracks. Weirdly, the dialogue is contemporary but the costume and setting, Regency, so the film’s more of a roleplay, a fan fiction that borders on parody and tribute. Is it frivolous? No. Is it funny? Yes. Clever, diverse and feminist even but it still does a lot of disservice to Austen’s work and what it stands for.
The film received massive backlash as soon as the trailer dropped, leading to many fiery debates. A literary classic, known for its heart aching words, being reduced to millennial, Instagram meme material wasn’t easy to fathom. In its defence, the film isn’t particularly shallow. The humour is sharp. At one instance, a woman asks Anne if Captain Frederick Wentworth ‘actually listens when women speak!” Taking digs at gender stereotypes, she adds, “Tell him you don’t know anything. Men like explaining. Also, stop responding when he seems interested.”
Making her feel like an outsider, someone who’s never heard or understood but used, Anne’s equation with her narcissistic and self-obsessed family is also well-captured. Director Carrie Cracknell tries to keep the emotions and ordeal of a single woman intact but breaking the fourth wall strategy and half modernising the theme, doesn’t quite work. Anne Elliot looking and talking to the camera feels more of an intrusion. She mumbling the F bomb, downing wine, using terms like ‘exes’ and slurping the tea — all things unladylike — is cool but none of it is what Anne would do. American actors accidentally softening their character’s stiff-upper-lip propah Brit persona and approach is refreshing but the lack of effort isn’t.
What makes Jane Austen relevant, centuries after her death is her idealistic take on love and it standing the test of time, despite the multitude of differences and distance between two people. Her understanding of fierce single women, who face hostility from their own families like she did, also made her work exemplary. This reboot touches upon that sketchily but none of it tugs at your heartstrings.