Word: rozema
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Adapting the most confounding of Jane Austen's works, Rozema has conflated the author and her creation, Fanny Price (Frances O'Connor). The Fanny of the novel, a mousy poor relative come to live in the eponymous great house, is here, like the author, a witty observer of the swells at romantic play. She's also the patient, strong-willed mistress of her own romantic destiny who finally achieves her long-desired true love. The movie may not entirely please Austen purists, but it is well acted, and it achieves a strong, smart, engaging life...
...Rozema's adaptation centers around her attempt to bring Jane Austen herself into the story through the character of Fanny Price (Frances O'Connor), our heroine. Rescued as a girl from her family's poverty by a wealthy uncle, Fanny moves to Mansfield Park, where she lives as a quasi-servant--constantly aware of her secondary status--for the duration of the story. In the novel, Fanny is quaintly moral, and pretty much chock-full of sugar and spice and everything nice. But Rozema has taken Fanny to new heights by giving her a boldness and sauciness which the director...
...Extending this sort of brash independence and playful wickedness to the rest of the film, Rozema has departed quite a bit from the subdued, "pretty" tone taken by other Austen filmmakers.And in losing this, she's brought social criticism to the fore. The film practically drips with satire--but it's a satire that's not entirely Austen. Of course, the story itself mocks many of the mores of the society Austen depicts, and the movie, accordingly, is not without some excellent moments (Harold Pinter makes an excellent pre-Victorian patriarch, dropping proper ultimatums right and left...
...letter in Austens novel becomes a visual, shocking debacle in the film, quite in character with the brash nature of the adaptation. Amazingly, the director has planned her story in a way that makes this acceptable by keeping with her more open, admittedly "extreme" tone throughout the movie, Rozema has us prepped for what would be the unthinkable--a sex scene (gasp!) in Mansfield Park...
...film, we're ready for the traditional, Austenian happy ending. Rozema has made us want it by putting us through a more turbid, uninhibited version of what is coldly reserved from the novel. Rozema has said that she thinks of Fanny Price as a "test" created by Austen to experiment with the reactions of those around her. Certainly Rozema has made Fanny and Mansfield itself into a test of her own. But can America handle Austen with a little modern spice...