Netflix's New 'Persuasion' Fails to Persuade

Netflix's Persuasion is directed by theater director Carrie Cracknell in her first movie venture and written by veteran Ron Bass (My Best Friend's Wedding) and Alice Victoria Winslow (Glaciers). They seem to have concocted it by speed-reading the Flashnotes version, whizzing a copy of Jane Austen's novel in a blender, and assembling the scraps blindfolded.

It's highly derivative, influenced by Armando Iannucci's high octane, tongue-in-cheek The Personal History of David Copperfield, but without its sense of adventure; Bridgerton's gleefully anachronistic approach, but without much of a sense of fun. Bring on the anachronisms! Unlike those shows, the pacing is, at times, glacial. Worse, there's a Fleabag-like adherence to the heroine sharing her thoughts directly with the camera and us, and far too often.

It's unnerving. We feel that we, the audience, are Anne Elliot's secret friends, along with her cute bunny rabbit. Dakota Johnson (50 Shades Franchise), hailed as an unlikely choice, doesn't bring any new insights to the character of Anne Elliott. How could she, with this script? Because Anne Eliot has been upgraded as an improvement on Austen's original, dragged into an unattractive 21st-century sensibility. The winks, grins, comments, and general demolition of the fourth wall become a stale embarrassment.