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Starring Frances O'Connor, Jonny Lee Miller, Embeth Davidtz, Alessandro Nivola, Harold Pinter,
Lindsay Duncan, Hannah Gordon Taylor. Written and Directed by Patricia Rozema.
Fanny Price (Taylor) lives in Portsmouth by the water with her family with seven young kids, eeking out a meagre existence. Her mother (Duncan) ships her off to her sister's place at the elegant country estate Mansfield Park. She becomes primarily a servant at the home, although she is given a lot of freedom to read, write and ride horses. While the two daughters of the house are not exactly warm to Fanny, she develops a close bond with the youngest son Edmund. As Fanny (O'Connor) grows older, Edmund (Miller) acts as a listening board for her stories. One day, brother and sister Henry and Mary (Nivola and Davidtz) arrive at the estate. All the women are enamored with Henry, including the recently engaged Mariah. Henry loves the attention, and sets his sight on landing one of them as his wife, to ensure a prosperous future. His sister sets her sights on Edmund. She also befriends Fanny, finding a much better companion than either of Edmund's sisters. After it looks like he'll never be able to land Mariah, he sets his sights on Fanny. But Fanny doesn't trust him, recognizing his skirt-chasing ways with Mariah, and his much-too-smooth manner with all women. Henry sneakily forces the issue by proposing marriage by first getting the consent of her uncle Sir Thomas Bertram (Pinter). He readily approves, but she defies him, and is sent packing back to Portsmouth to live with her family. But how and when will she return? Mansfield Park has generated controversy for making Fanny more beautiful and intelligent than Austen wrote her. Rozema has also made Fanny a writer, and injected some of Austen's own fantastical writings she did when she was a teenager. Her goal was to make Fanny more like Austen herself, although some have said Mansfield Park is already Austen's most autobiographical book. I wouldn't know - I've not read the book. But Rozema and O'Connor appear to have created a more interesting character than the weak, timid creature that supposedly inhabits the novel. And in public, Fanny is still the reserved, shy woman who rarely says what she thinks, and refuses to directly express her love to the man she loves with all her heart. It is only in private, in her writings and to her sister, that she boldy and honestly expresses her many and varied feelings. The film also played up the fact the Bertram family are slave-runners, which Austen supposedly only slightly mentions in the book. The script is literate and often insightful, and spattered with an understated sense of humour. And there is much more social commentary than is usually presented in Austen films. Money, and its corrupting influence, is front and center. Fanny's cousin Mariah is set to be married to a well-meaning, but awkward gentlemen, who she is attracted to only because he can give a comfortable life in the city. She literally despises him. But when Henry walks into her life, she quickly has second thoughts. She opts for the money. Another instance involves Fanny and her temptation to marry Henry. Fanny doesn't trust Henry, and doesn't want to marry him - she's in love with Edmund - but after spending a bit of time back home in the poverty of her family, she momentarilily gives in, before changing her mind back again, and sending Henry on his way. Fanny's given further pressure by her mother, who cautions Fanny that she married for love, and look at the life it got her. A third instance occurs when Edmund tells Fanny that there's a bit of trouble with his father's slave trade, that slaves might be banned from England, and Fanny suggests it is a good thing. But Edmund replies the luxurious lifestyle at Mansfield Park is dependent on that income. And Fanny has no reply. The performances are uniformly well done. Relative newcomer O'Connor is excellent, producing a seamless transition from timid and fearful child to an increasingly confident and insightful adult. Miller of Trainspotting fame is almost unrecognizable in a great way, delivering a restrained, but sometimes intense portrayal of a decent man who befriends Fanny despite her being from a lower class family. Davidtz is quite good as the scheming Mary, who's after Edmund for the money, and doesn't mind his brother Tom dying so she can get more of it. Duncan, in a duo role as both mother and aunt of Fanny, shines especially in the mother role, displaying the bleakness of a life with too many kids and not enough money. For those who liked the smartly written, and beautifully filmed Jane Austen films of the past few years, and can stomach the update to Fanny's character, Mansfield Park is sure to please.  
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