Mansfield Park

Year of release : 1999

Run time : 1h53m

Genre : Romance / Drama

Cast : Jonny Lee Miller, Frances O'Connor, Embeth Davidtz, Alessandro Nivola, Justine Waddell, James Purefoy

The movie is inspired by Jane Austen's book of the same name, but it was changed a lot by the writer/director, Patricia Rozema, who also put things from Jane Austen's personal life into the movie, gave reasons to the alcoholic son to be so, by vilifying the good father, and inserted the slavery problems from the West Indies plantations.

When she was 10 years old, Fanny was sent from her home, by her mother, who has way too many kids, and is too poor to be able to care for them, to a wealthy relative.

Although the elder treat her as the help (mostly the maid,who's also her mother's aunt!), the young include her in everything they do, and see her as their equal. Since she moved in, she got attached to Edmund,who's her best friend.

Edmund keeps on saying how much he loves her, but he doesn't love her like a man loves a woman, but like a friend.

Fanny is in love with him, and when Henry and Mary Crawford arrive, Edmund falls for Mary, whom he wants to marry.

Henry sets his sights on the engaged sister of the Bartram family, as he sees her as a challenge,who marries to spite him for refusing her.

Although Mary doesn't seem to share any of Edmund's values (who wants to be a clergy man), he still wants to marry her, and Henry sets his sights on Fanny, who refuses him because she is in love with Edmund,stating that she thinks his intentions are impure.

I personally enjoyed the movie, because I didn't remember the book so well, but I still wondered if Jane Austen wrote such things! The movie even has a "love scene" inserted , which we know you can't find in Jane's books!

The female characters are also ahead of their time due to their thinking and manners (thing which I think was not in the book).

The director even said the movie is not a Jane Austen one, but a Patricia Rozema one, which tells you all you need to know about it.

The movie changed the way certain characters were, got rid of others, and changed events, making the slavery trade a central plot point. Speaking of which, in one of the scenes in which Fanny arrives at Mansfield Park, she hears cries from a slave ship, and I kept on wondering why were there ships with slaves in Britain, as as I recall, they never brought such ships to England!

Regarding the way sir Thomas treated the slaves, we see that he tries to treat Fanny almost the same way, when he tries to marry her off to Henry, although she refuses, so he sends her to her poor family, to remember what's like to be poor, and come to her senses, for not doing as told.

The director considered Fanny in the book as annoying, because she was shy and was afraid to give her opinion (as one would be if they grew in their relatives' home since the age of 10!), so she made her the opposite in the movie, also making her a writer.

The actors were good. Actress Lindsay Duncan plays double role, Fanny's mother, and mrs. Bertram.

The places where they filmed were beautiful, I also liked the women's clothes.

The movie received positive reviews, and grossed 4.7 million dollars at the box office.

You can watch the movie here, for free : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmVhUbKaewo&ab_channel=BastianLeeJones

Rating : Worth a watch !