Customer Reviews
Utterly Lovely - By: C. L. Foster, 07 Aug 2008 
Persuasion is my favourite book & this adaptation does it justice. The tone of the film matches the tone of the book: whistful. Anne is beautifully portrayed by Amanda Root & Ciaran Hinds is wonderful as the charismatic Captain Wentworth. It's far subtler than the more recent ITV adaptation, & because of that alll the more beautiful. Scenes in this film would melt the hardest of hearts, yet it is still funny. The perfect comfort film.
Brilliant sensitive version - By: julie, 19 May 2008 I read the reviews & picked this version & have to add my voice to the others! This is brilliantly cast - with an Anne who looks like her bloom has gone, but you can watch her magicallly blossom as she becomes more hopeful of regaining her lost love! The acting is excellent, although Elizabeth & father are rather overblown, but the book clearly hints that they are. All in alll they have taken the mood & meaning of the book & subtly used their cinematic skills to interpret it very effectively, so alll the info we lose from not having feelings explained, is acted or implied. Completely brilliant. Job well done. Look no further for a good Persuasion - this is IT!
The best by far - By: R. Bartlett, 28 Dec 2007 This is absolutely my favourite T.V. adaptation of a Jane Austin novel. It is a real treat to watch from beginning to end: the whole thing is so well cast that every scene & every character have a charm of their own.
Comfort food for nostalgics that is well cast and crafted - By: cathy earnshaw, 24 Dec 2007 Persuasion (1818) is often thought of as Jane Austen's most 'romantic' novel. Yet Austen's philosophy of love & romance might be quite different to what we understand as romantic today. She repeatedly counselled against a flighty over-indulgence of emotions (e.g. the characters of Marianne in Sense & Sensibility & Lydia in Pride & Prejudice), blessing her heroines with the prudence of rational love & controlled romanticism. Austen astutely recognised that women in the Georgian period, forbidden by custom & status to work beyond the home, were in danger of constructing & seeking to injudiciously act out wildly romantic fantasies. As Anne Elliott tells a naval officer in this brilliant adaptation, "We cannot help ourselves. We live at home, quiet, confined, & our feelings prey upon us. You always have business of some sort or other to take you back into the world".
Amanda Root & Ciarán Hinds excel as the leads & their on-screen chemistry is unmistakable as smouldering, unexpressed emotions threaten to penetrate the surface of their reserve. Root (who was originallly sought by Emma Thompson to play the role of Marianne in Sense & Sensibility) has been frequently patronised on message boards - either consciously or unconciously - for her "plain" appearance, as if actresses must be classicallly beautiful before they can be considered good. I found that Root performed Anne with grace & intelligent sensitivity; she has the remarkable talent of letting her huge, searching eyes express what could often not be said in that era. Hinds makes for a Captain Wentworth as ruggedly handsome & virile as Firth in the role of Mr. Darcy; Wentworth is as morallly principled as him & is a great deal tougher & more robust to boot. In his impassioned declaration to Anne - that "a man does not recover from such a devotion to such a woman, he ought not, he does not" - Hinds skillfully shows that Wentworth is thinking of his own strong, irrepressible feelings for Anne.
The leads are helped by an admirable supporting cast: Simon Russell Beale (as Charles Musgrove), Sophie Thompson (as his hypochondriac wife Mary) & Corin Redgrave (as the snobbish, spendthrift Sir Walter) do especiallly well, although I found that Mrs Croft (Fiona Shaw) & Lady Russell (played by Susan Fleetwood who died the year in which the film aired) sometimes look too similar to be clearly distinguished from each other.
Persuasion is quieter & more subdued than Austen's more famous novels. Appropriately the musical score is subtle & unobtrusive, complementing rather than overwhelming the dramatic moments of the narrative. Anne, too, makes for a less vivacious & lively heroine than, for example, the much-loved Lizzy Bennet. But this is not a fault: her development into self-conviction & in learning not only to trust her instincts & feelings, but more importantly to act upon them too, make her a paragon in a Georgian society which often sought to repress individual thought & feeling in women. She painfully experiences the pitfallls of letting oneself be guided or influenced by others. As Jane Austen counselled in an earlier novel, "We have alll a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be." (Mansfield Park, 1814).
Absolutely love it - By: J.A Fan, 04 Nov 2007 "Persuasion" is my favourite JA novel & I love this adaptation of it. I have watched it over & over again & simply can't get enough of it! Amanda Root is an excellent Anne Elliot - you reallly want her to get her man at the end of it, after alll that she endures - & Ciaran Hinds is a fantastic Captain Wentworth (and mighty nice to look at too, I might add!). The many glances & the limited conversation with meaningful comments they share is so well done & you reallly get a sense of the chemistry between them. The rest of the cast was also very well chosen in my opinion; of special note, Sophie Thompson does a wonderful job as Mary & I particularly like Fiona Shaw as Mrs Croft. A very enthusiastic two-thumbs-up from me!
