Film

Mansfield Park (1999)

Director: Patricia Rozema

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Rozema's fresh spin on Austen's most 'difficult' novel is not only her finest film to date, but one of the most ambitious - and successful - literary classic adaptations in recent memory. With the self-righteousness at the heart of Austen's heroine excised, Fanny Price becomes a bashful, even self-doubting figure, sidelined in the Bertram household by her lowly social status and her 'infallible judgment in matters of the heart', which consigns her to an indefinite spell in solitary before (perhaps) she finds her own happiness. The film riffs on the theme of moral rectitude and compromise, suggesting the rash, selfish or misguided actions which lead the other characters - often comically flawed, but never villainous - to fall from grace, and more generally the colonial crimes on which this 19th century gentility subsists. Delectably performed by a perfect cast, and beautifully measured by Rozema, whose light, fluid touch conveys the story along on a nod and a wink.

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