Jane Austen’s quiet, subtle novel gets Fleabag’s treatment in this smiling romantic comedy; has more wrong notes than a squad of drunken harpists, including anything but a last-minute race in a barrouche at Bath Airport. Our demure protagonist Anne Elliot is always making arrogant shots and ironic monologues in front of the camera, taking desperate sips of a bottle of red wine in private, occasionally breastfeeding a quirky pet rabbit and in the end (unforgivably) makes us a wink to close the deal. of our adorably complicit approval. The final scene of the wedding invents a nice comic twist that involves two different characters whose status and purpose this film is very wrong.
Casting itself is not the problem: Dakota Johnson sees and plays the role of Anne, who eight years earlier has been convinced to reject a marriage proposal of the handsome but moneyless Wentworth, in which Cosmo Jarvis makes a honest work. , with a touch of Firth / Grant in his shy but grumpy reluctance. Now Wentworth has returned to the neighborhood, recently wealthy, prestigiously promoted and, it is said, still looking for a woman, for the mortification of the lonely Anne (she is still in love with him). Meanwhile, his family has fallen apart in difficult times due to the snobbish father-in-law Sir Walter Elliot, amusingly portrayed by Richard E Grant. Her selfish sister Mary (played by stage robbery by Mia McKenna-Bruce) makes claims about Anne taking her to Lyme, where her brother-in-law Charles’s beautiful sisters (Ben Bailey-Smith) involve Wentworth in fun romantic attractions. . Her cousin William Elliot (Henry Golding), an alleged claimant of her father’s baroness, makes progress, and is still close to the mentor who disastrously persuaded her against Captain Wentworth: this is Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird ), that in this version there is someone who does cougar sex tours around Europe (off-camera).
Jane Austen’s books should not be written sacred for adaptations: the film Clueless and Curtis Sittenfeld’s underrated comic novel Eligible show how you can have a free hand. And the diverse Bridgerton-style casting of this film undoubtedly relates to the novel’s historical themes such as imperial rights, properties in the West Indies, naval looting, and corsairs. But there is something greasy, ill-conceived and unconvincing about it.
Persuasion premieres July 8 in theaters and July 15 on Netflix.