Mark Reviews Movies: PERSUASION

Persuasion, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 14, 2022

There's a lot to appreciate about director Carrie Cracknell's adaptation of Jane Austen's final and—relatively speaking—typically overlooked novel (The more well-known ones have become an engrained part of popular culture, while the adaptations of this one have been limited to television and the stage until now). Persuasion, the theater director's debut feature, has a sense of intimacy and an appropriately cheeky tone in regards to the wheelings, dealings, and eccentricities of the society of the era and the people within it. Most of that feeling and humor comes directly from our protagonist, Austen's lovelorn and quick-witted Anne Elliot, who once made the mistake of being persuaded against following her heart and has regretted it ever since.

Anne is played by Dakota Johnson, who isn't too invested in her proper British dialect but more than compensates for it with the right combination of remorse and a continual, playful spark of sardonic wit. In terms of the movie's main stylistic gimmick, Cracknell, along with screenwriters Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow, take advantage of and highlight the matter-of-fact, conversational tone Austen so often employed in her writing.

Here, Anne isn't simply the focus of a plot involving a couple romantic entanglements, an overbearing family that doesn't much care about her desires, and some scheming about who will be heir to that family's honors and dwindling fortune. She speaks directly to us about these matters and more, breaking the fourth wall with sarcastic observations, a couple winks, and a dead-eyed stare that communicates just as much as any bon mot or mischievous gesture. She has a lot to criticize—not only about the whims of family and society, but also about herself, her past lack of strength of will, and her current predicament of being too uncertain about how to handle her ongoing feelings for the man she almost married years ago.

The device goes a long way toward giving us a direct sense of this character and her attitudes toward everything and everyone surrounding her, and Cracknell might take the running gag of Anne's dismissive and dubious glares a bit too far. Unfortunately, the gimmick can't overcome the sinking sensation that the clear-eyed attention on Anne has rendered the romance of this tale as a secondary or even tertiary concern. This is, after all, a love story, and if we don't accept or believe the passion—as uncertain and hesitant as it may be—between the main lovers, how far can one clever gimmick really take this material?

It works quite well at the start, to be sure. Anne lives with her father Walter (a funny Richard E. Grant), a vain widower, and elder sister Elizabeth (Yolanda Kettle). The father has outspent the family's means, and when the debt collectors come calling, it's time to rent the manor for income.

The new tenant is an admiral, whose brother-in-law, also coming to stay, just happens to be Capt. Frederick Wentworth (a constantly mournful-looking Cosmo Jarvis). Anne and the naval officer were on course to be married seven years ago, until the family and close friend Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird) convinced Anne that Frederick, who had no money or rank at the time, was unworthy of her. She still loves Frederick, but Anne is convinced that his cold attitude means he no longer has any affection for or interest in her.

Anyway, there's some obvious tension between the two exes (The screenplay does some minor tweaks to Austen's language by including terms like that, as well as contemporizing ideas like numeral ranking of looks and becoming like a "ghost" to feign disinterest). They dance around their not-so-hidden feelings for each other with some considered wordings, by evading gazes, and in generally keeping a physical and emotional distance from each other. This is a necessity, of course, because the narrative requires it, but the screenplay overshadows this tenuous bond and the couple's uncertain future with a few too many diversions.

Most of the mostly—and admittedly—pleasant distraction comes from Anne's immediate and extended family. We have Walter and Elizabeth, of course, who disappear for a long stretch, but the bulk of Anne's time is taken up by her younger and predictably egotistical sister Mary (a very funny Mia McKenna-Bruce), her husband Charles (Ben Bailey-Smith), and his two sisters, with Louisa (Nia Towle), the younger of Anne's sisters-in-law, quickly becoming infatuated with Frederick. The humor here, which primarily revolves around how self-absorbed Mary is, works, but as with all of the complications that arise from Frederick's apparent nonchalance toward Anne and the hasty romantic triangle established by Louisa's presence, it keeps that love story at a distance.

It doesn't help that William, a distant relative of Anne's, arrives as another potential suitor. He's played by Henry Golding, whose on-screen charisma and chemistry with Johnson far outshines Frederick—both as a character and as the seemingly pre-destined partner for our protagonist. That adds yet another layer of detachment from a love story that's meant to have endured for nearly a decade, only to barely register within the scope of the story or its surface-level allures.

Compared to how much else Persuasion does differently and with some success, the shaky reunion and ensuing relationship between Anne and Frederick is a minor shortcoming. That's the main problem, though: It shouldn't come across as minor in any way.

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