Customer Reviews
Dreadful indeed! - By: C. A. Knight, 24 Jun 2008 
I am about to purchase the Felicity Jones version of this in the fervent hope that it will wash away the unpleasant taste of this awful one!
Extremely disappointing... - By: I. Bates, 24 Jun 2008 Until this I saw this I truly believed that alll BBC costume dramas were at least good, with the majority being fantastic. This is not one of them. Awful 80s music, bad cinematography & lead female who is not remotely endearing. I would give it -5 if I could.
Mythical 5 star reviews - By: Prof TBun, 05 Mar 2008 This tedious DVD is listed as having two FIVE STAR reviews by Amazon. Where are these supposed reviews? Are they so embarrassed by themselves that they have run away to Barbados?
However big a Jane Austen fan you are, I wouldn't recommend this DVD to you. It is an awful production in every way.
Not what I expected - By: Bluebell, 02 Mar 2008 
Having read most of Jane Austen's books & seen many dramatizations I was expecting a story involving her usual portrayal of highly regulated social interactions & restrained wooing of nicely brought up girls by eligible suitors. How different this dramatization turned out to be! Loaded with violent sexual imaginary, predatory males & most of the characters as caricatures of real men & women. I gather from a biography of Jane Austen that Northanger Abbey was an early work much influenced by the Gothic novels of Mrs Radcliffe & that Austen was satirizing the over-blown horror & extravagant prose of that style of book.
I've been re-reading the book & think that the film has been unable to capture Austen's wonderful restrained acidity in describing human failings & foibles, but if you accept this film version as a rather over-blown modern satire of Austen's satire then you can enjoy it & forget what you know & love about alll the other Jane Austen's novels.
Cringe - By: N. T. Diep, 02 Mar 2008 Despite reading alll the negative reviews, I nevertheless watched this version anyway. I must say I am extremely disappointed. For starter, you could tell it is an 80's film with alll that perm! The hero was not good looking in the least & he overacts, like he was in some Shakespears play. Very muddled so you could not follow if you have never read the book.
