July 16, 2022
Anne (Dakota Johnson) was the second daughter of vain and pompous Sir Walter Elliot (Richard E. Grant). She was supposed to have married Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis), but he had no title or wealth to speak of. Anne was persuaded by Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird), her godmother whom she considered her second mother, to give him up. This was a difficult decision from which Anne could never really move on since then.
Eight years later, Wentworth came back home an accomplished Captain of the British Navy, while Anne was staying with her younger sister Mary (a perfectly petulant Mia McKenna-Bruce) and her family. Anne and Wentworth were reunited, but there was still much tension between them. Each of them both get involved with others, Wentworth to Mary's sister-in-law Louisa (Nia Towle) and Anne to wealthy cousin Mr. William Elliot (Henry Golding).
Jane Austen told such irresistible stories in her books which made for great adaptation into films. Her popular novels that have been made into films or TV mini-series were: "Pride and Prejudice" (17 adaptations, with the 1940 and 1995 versions cited for Oscars), "Emma" (12 adaptations, with "Clueless" as a notable modern-day retelling) and "Sense and Sensibility" (5 adaptations, with the Oscar-winning Emma Thompson version being the most famous).
Not to be left behind, "Persuasion" had been told 6 times before on television, the most beloved of which had been the 1995 version with Amanda Root as Anne and Ciaran Hinds as Wentworth, and the 2005 version with Sally Hawkins as Anne and Rupert Penry-Jones as Wentworth. There had also been five theatrical adaptations of this same novel, all staged within the second decade of this new millennium.
Dakota Johnson as Anne broke the fourth wall by talking to the camera as she told us her thoughts. Her Anne was easily the prettiest among the Elliot daughters, so it was difficult to understand why she was considered the least eligible. However to make her hip, she was made to say millennial lingo like "we're exes" and "he's a ten," and do boorish behavior like drinking wine from a bottle and peeing behind a tree, which was definitely un-Austen.
This Netflix version also took a cue from one of Netflix's biggest hit series "Bridgerton," by casting black actors to play Lady Russell, the Musgroves, and Capt. Benwick, and an Asian actor to play William Elliot. There were also lines which espoused feminist ideals, very frequently observed in recent films. Nevertheless, the charm of Austen's story still managed to shine through all the inclusive alteration for the current woke generation. 6/10.
Hi, Just wanted to say that Henry Golding is still half-white. As such, it is not really that "woke" for him to play Mr Elliot.
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