1995-96 were very good years for Austen adaptations. Six adaptations were made in that time including my beloved P&P I wrote about in my first post. After reading P&P I started reading through her other novels. I watched Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility and Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma and read through their originals voraciously. But I didn't know anything about Persuasion until I saw this...
And I fell in love with Amanda Root and Anne Eliot.
So let's back up here and preface this with the same thing I said in P&P. I saw this before I read the book and it was the first adaptation I saw of the book as well. That imprint thing is probably at work here. But Amanda Root made me want to read this book. She is Anne Eliot in my eyes.
In case you do not know the story here's a brief synopsis. Anne Eliot and Captain Wentworth were in love eight years earlier. They planned to be married but Anne was persuaded by her mother's friend, Lady Russell, to not accept him. Wentworth, while he had excellent prospects of doing well in the Navy, had no money. As the daughter of a baronet, this was unacceptable. Eight years have passed and Wentworth is now richer than rich. Anne Eliot's father, a vain and frivolous man, is now in debt and has to rent out his house. He rents it to none other than Wentworth's sister and her husband. Wentworth is now looking for a wife and while he and Anne are now in the same vicinity, he is still very angry and hurt over their history and is looking for a very different kind of woman.
Her strength is very apparent in the scene above when she is the only one able to deal with the incident at Lyme and remain calm while everyone else descends into hysteria or shock.
I cannot talk about Persuasion without discussing the letter. The most wonderful letter that ever was written, that Wentworth writes to Anne. In the book the moment is very intense and it plays out beautifully on the screen. With their soft, whispered voices interweaving as Anne reads the letter. Then, when Anne comes downstairs and they see each other, Amanda Root's subtlety really comes into play. Anne barely even smiles and yet you can tell by the look in her eyes what her feelings are for Wentworth. That intensity of all those years apart, the pain and the anguish, all in those few seconds. Exquisite.
Seriously. Go and read that letter. It will make your heart ache.
Of course, this version does have it's problems. Both Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds (who is also wonderful) are maybe a bit too old for their parts. There is also some issues with the story of the deceptiveness of Mr Eliot, who actually isn't poor, but he just wants to use Anne to keep her father from marrying again. He could of course be disinherited if Sir Eliot fathers an heir. This does not come across well in this particular version.
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