Classics Revisited: Why the 1995 'Persuasion' is a Perfect Jane Austen Adaptation
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.
If Persuasion has been described (not altogether accurately) as a "Cinderella" story, the 1995 film adaptation is the Cinderella of Jane Austen adaptations. It was a big year for Austen, with Andrew Davies' Pride and Prejudice and Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility. Persuasion, however, was a low-budget BBC endeavor adapting Austen's 1817 novel in under two hours. There was such a demand for Austen-era costumes, designer Alexandra Byrne (Emma) had to turn to suppliers in Italy and Australia. Thankfully, BBC's collaboration with Masterpiece and Sony Pictures Classic (which put it out in limited release) led to extra funding, allowing filming on location and borrowed footage of tall ships from 1984's The Bounty.
The screenplay was by Nick Dear with Roger Michell directing and starred newcomer Amanda Root as Anne Elliot. However, thjey discovered the book presented problems, as the central character hardly speaks for most of the first half, making it hard to move the action along. But the director's goal was for it to feel genuine, like it could be happening in the next room, instead of getting caught up in the period details. U.S. critics had mixed feelings about the film. In The New Yorker, Anthony Lane called it "troubled, astringent, and touched with melancholy" — not unlike the novel. And The Chicago Tribune commented, "the dress and makeup [are] far plainer and probably more truthful than we're accustomed to in Masterpiece Theatre productions."
As for some viewers, they complained that the leads were ugly. Not so. Ciarán Hinds looks like a rugged, handsome, weatherbeaten man who's spent most of his adult life at war. Root starts off wan and downbeaten but comes into her own. In the familiar, glamorous city of Bath, you'll see a beggar wearing the remnants of a Navy uniform, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars. There's a lot of informality. Women hoist skirts to warm their feet and legs at the fireside; men's coats are discarded indoors, and everyone puts their elbows on the table. If you went for a walk in this version, you'd get cold, muddy, and wet. It looks absolutely right.
