In Mansfield Park, Jane Austen becomes a character in the novel she wrote almost 200 years ago.

 Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozema has turned the novel's heroine, Fanny Price, into Austen herself.

 Instead of simply an impoverished country girl who goes to live with richer relatives on a magnificent estate, Fanny becomes a budding writer of romance fiction.

 In Austen's novel, Fanny (Frances O'Connor) is sent to live with the stern Sir Thomas Bertram (Harold Pinter) because her parents cannot afford to raise her and her six siblings.

 At first, Fanny is treated as little more than a servant, but eventually her strong moral character endears her to the Bertrams and especially Sir Thomas' second son Edmund (Jonny Lee Miller), who is studying to become a minister.

 Pure, sincere moral girl wins heart of shy, studious, moral man. That was Austen's young lovers.

 Rozema's are far more complex and considerably more hormonal.

 Fanny knows she loves Edmund, but he believes they are just great friends.

 When the dangerously flirtatious Mary Crawford (Embeth Davidtz) and her devastatingly handsome brother Henry (Alessandro Nivola) arrive at Mansfield Park, the starcrossed Fanny and Edmund temporarily zoom off into separate galaxies.

 Mary is convinced Edmund will eventually inherit the Bertram estate because his older brother Tom (James Purefoy) has denounced his father's involvement in the slave trade and has embraced alcohol.

 Henry finds Fanny an interesting conquest. She is the first woman he has met who has spurned his charming advances.

 It's with these courting rituals that Rozema's film excels. And it is all Rozema and not Austen concocting these scenarios. In the novel, Henry was an obvious cad and an opportunist. In the film, he actually learns to love Fanny in his own way.

 When Sir Thomas gives Henry permission to marry Fanny, she rushes back to the squalor of her birthplace. He pursues her and his wooing gives the film some of its most romantic moments.

 Austen purists may have reason to denounce Rozema's take on Mansfield Park, but moviegoers certainly don't.

 It is a ravishingly beautiful, emotionally stirring costume romp that's filled with wit and intelligence.

(This film is rated AA)

More Movie Reviews