Persuasion Netflix review (spoiler I didn't like it)
It was actually worse than I
thought it was going to be.
Hello so today is July the 15th. It is the day
when the new adaptation of Persuasion starring
Dakota Johnson drops onto Netflix. Incredible that
they knew about Jane Austen July and like knew to
drop the film in that month, someone at Netflix
has clearly done their homework. So I thought
I would just do like a little impromptu review,
get like my thoughts like right after I’ve seen
the film. I haven’t seen the film yet, I’m about
to sit down with my dinner and watch it. So when
the trailer dropped a few weeks ago I think, the
Jane Austen fans of the internet were obviously
outraged. This film seems to have taken the
character of Emma and put her inside the story of
Persuasion, while also adding like Fleabag into it
because that’s fashionable. So right off from the
trailer you can tell that this is not going to be
a good adaptation of the book of Persuasion. Anne
Elliot would never look at the camera, wink
to camera, make a witty remarks at the camera,
that’s just not her character. So for me I’m
just going to like completely remove the book
out of the equation. I’m going to try
this to enjoy it for what it is. What I can glean
from the trailer is that it’s leaning more towards
perhaps the Keira Knightley version of Pride and
Prejudice. There’s a lot of loose hair going on,
there’s a lot of wandering around without bonnets,
it’s definitely not trying to be historically
accurate. But it also doesn’t seem to be going
too far into Bridgerton where it’s like purposely
being over the top and mixing up eras and fashions
and styles and stuff to just make something kind
of new. So I don’t know whether it’s going to work
because I feel like there’s too many different
elements going on. I also don’t think Dakota
Johnson’s going to do a particularly good English
accent from what I’ve seen in the trailer. However
everyone else is English and they all seem to be
pretty well cast. One of the things that I will
praise the film for is the colourblind casting
I think that’s really cool. And from what I can
gather from what I know about the actors that
they’ve cast, they seem to have cast really well
in all the supporting characters so I am excited
to see all of them. To be honest, Persuasion is
not my personal favorite book, I find Anne Elliott
a little boring. Of course the exception to this
is the 90’s adaptation of Persuasion which
is not just one of my favorite Jane Austen
adaptations but one of my favourite films of all
time, it is so beautifully shot. If you haven’t
seen that version I would highly recommend going
and finding it. I actually watched it on YouTube
so it might still be there, if it is I will link
it in the description below. In that adaptation
I felt like they were really faithful to the book
but there’s something about being able to see
an actor’s face doing all this internal work but
still understanding what she’s going through in
her head that worked really well for me
and actually made a lot more sympathetic
and interesting to me than she was in the book.
I hope this will be a fun film to watch anyway
and regardless it’s so exciting when a new Jane
Austen adaptation comes out. As popular as Jane
Austen is we actually don’t get that many
adaptations of her works. Compared to people
who are fans of Marvel comics you know they
get billions of new films every single year.
Us Jane Austen fans we get like one every few
years if that and it depends on whether like
people are going through a regency or period drama
phase or not. So any new Jane Austen content I’m
personally excited for. I will come back once
I watch the film and give you my actual review.
Okay so I have finished the film. I don’t even
know where to start it was actually worse than
I thought it was going to be. Firstly Dakota
Johnson’s accent, that was as bad as I thought
it was going to be. I think she tried her best,
I think it’s the fault of the people who cast
her like it’s not fair on an actor if they simply
can’t do an accent. And I think she was miscast
even for this new version of Anne that they
were going for weirdly. They’re trying to
make her this like awkward but in a charming way
person who like trips over all the time and like
accidentally spills wine on her head at one point.
I just didn’t believe Dakota Johnson in this role,
I didn’t believe in her as this klutz, I didn’t
think she was landing the jokes very well.
And then Cosmo Jarvis playing Frederick Wentworth,
he was terrible he was so miscarried, he had no
charm, no charisma and he had no chemistry with
Dakota Johnson at all and that’s literally what
this story hinges on. Like regardless of how much
else you change in the story of Persuasion, the
point of the story is these two main characters
having this unspoken longing and chemistry with
each other and that is what keeps the love story
going and without that there’s just no point to
the story. I just feel like this film failed
on the most basic like romantic comedy levels
to start with, not being funny and not being very
romantic. The whole putting modern phrases into it
I just didn’t get why they were doing that. Like
if you want to make a modern adaption do that, do
like a full Clueless style adaptation, set it in
the modern era. I think those types of films are
really fun and they work really well to showcase
the reason why these stories are classics,
because they have universal stories and characters
and themes that will resonate throughout any age.
When I first heard that Dakota Johnson was cast
in this film I instantly assumed that it was
a modern adaptation and I thought that would be
really cool. So I was actually quite disappointed
when the first still came out and she was in
period costume. But yeah the way they have added
in modern vernacular is so patronising. It’s like
they don’t trust the audience to understand what’s
going on without over explaining everything and
relating it to modern phrases. There’s one point
where a character says she’s an empath and there’s
another point where um Anne pulls out this like
pile of sheet music and says look at this playlist
that Frederick made me. It’s so unnecessary
and it’s bizarre because Jane Austen is hugely
popular, she is one of the most famous and most
read authors in the entire world like there’s no
need to doubt that people will understand what’s
going on. So it’s crazy to me that they felt this
need to you know supposedly make it relevant. They
also have Anne talk to the camera a lot especially
at the beginning to provide all this like
backstory and exposition of these characters which
you actually don’t need. Like she has this whole
speech about her dad being vain, like you don’t
need that you just need to see the actor, who
is Richard E. Grant who’s a great actor, be vain
and then you get it that that character is vain.
It was such a bizarre choice because the whole
point of watching a film is that we’re seeing
these actors act out the characters and through
their acting we understand who the characters are.
To have her verbally explain everything was such a
boring choice. Back to the way they characterised
Anne she’s become this really mean person. She’s
like an alcoholic basically, they sort of make
fun of the way she’s like always drinking and
like has a hangover in the morning. It’s such
a like wine mum thing of like glamorising
loving wine but being sad, like I find it
very old-fashioned and very childish really. And
you can tell that the people who wrote this film
think they’re appealing to young people when they
are really not. But yeah I guess I could kind of
understand her meanness if we were just hearing
her inner monologues talking to the camera. Anne
Elliot’s a really quiet softly spoken character in
the book so you could imagine that she is thinking
all these mean things about her family who are
really horrible to her. But she’s like visibly
mean to them as well and it’s actually quite
uncomfortable to watch. They’ve really reduced
the surrounding characters to stereotypes I
felt as well. To the point that in the end it
was just such a farce, like I couldn’t take this
film seriously I was just laughing at it because
it was so badly written. It’s so misunderstood
the book, the point of the story. It just was
like why are we even bothering with this film,
why are you bothering to make this adaptation,
what are we actually gaining from this, absolutely
nothing as far as I can tell. I think that’s
everything that I can think of to say about it at
this point. Like I said before there’s so few Jane
Austen adaptations that we get that it’s such a
shame when they’re bad. And yeah sadly this one is
really up there for being probably the worst
one I’ve ever seen. It does look quite pretty,
I found it a bit too glossy for my taste and yeah
obviously you know their hair not always being
properly done was not quite correct. But actually
I thought the costuming was quite well done,
it looked like they did a lot of location shooting
which is always lovely. I sadly don’t recommend
anyone watch it unless you were just super curious
or like a Jane Austen adaptation completist.
If you have seen it do let me know in the comments
what you think about it. But I would recommend
going and checking out the 90s adaptation which I
think is just a perfect film, perfect adaptation,
no need for anyone to make another one. So
thanks for watching and I will see you soon. Bye!
