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Not to take anything away from Jane. In her time, her novels were unique. Women didn't typically write about their subservient place in society. But she did, illuminating the inequities and injustices of the day within the context of her sensitively observed romantic plots.
The problem with Austen is her stories tend to be variations on the same theme: woman of diminished means finds love within the intrigues and duplicities of her tight social circle.
In Mansfield Park, Canadian director Patricia Rozema solves the problems of familiarity and good manners by emphasizing the grim social realities of her day. She also gently torques the sexual undercurrent to lengths that would have been deemed highly inappropriate in Austen's polite society.
At the centre of it all is Fanny Price (Frances O'Connor), a poor lass shipped off to live with rich, condescending relations, the Bertrams. But there among the laudanum-tupping matriarch (Lindsay Duncan) and the slave-trader patriarch (Harold Pinter), Fanny finds a soul mate in their son Edmund (Jonny Lee Miller).
But Edmund's eye has been caught by the beautiful, worldly Mary Crawford (Embeth Davidtz). At the same time, Mary's seductive brother Henry (Alessandro Nivola) sets his sights on the lovely Fanny. Will true love prevail? What do you think?
Rozema collaborates with the appealing Australian actress O'Connor to turn heroine Fanny into less of a shrinking violet and more like Austen herself. (Fanny is even given the writing credit for Austen's History Of England.)
Rozema also doesn't deny her contemporary sensibility in telling this centuries-old story. Sometimes, that's a good thing, particularly in a scene in which Fanny discovers the horrors of slavery. But in another scene, in which it looks like O'Connor might exchange an unchaste kiss with Davidtz, Rozema is just trawling for cheap, Ally McBeal-type thrills.
Still, her interpretation of Austen's world is refreshingly bleak and uncommonly gritty. You can't blame her for wanting to add spice to the oft-too-bland English literary cuisine.
(This film is rated AA )