I have tons of problems with the 07 Persuasion movie but the one i wanna talk about today is how much i HATE the ending where he like. Buys Kellynch for her. Because it completely defeats the whole damn point!
A lot of Austen’s writing keeps revisiting this theme of dismantling the gentry, and other people have written much better essays than I about the topic, but Persuasion very much is not exempt from this. It’s almost heavy-handed how much Austen is pushing the point of “generational wealth and land and status = bad and corrupt!!!!” Persuasion circles around and around the question of how much misery is maintaining the Family Name worth. It comes up in Henrietta Musgrove’s anticipated and unhappy marriage, it comes up in the way that Sir Walter and Elizabeth make idiots of themselves trying to strengthen their connection with the Dalrymples, it comes up in the way Mr. Elliot has to plot and scheme and wile to try and ensure that he gets Kellynch and the title.
The point of Persuasion is that Anne escapes all of that. She marries a man with no pedigree but woth status and money that he’s earned in his own right. She refuses to perpetuate the misery of empty status, and chooses a different life.
Putting the two of them back in Kellynch isn’t a romantic gesture, it’s a rejection of one of the core themes of the novel! Anne marrying Wentworth isn’t about having the money to buy back her family estate, it’s about having the freedom to leave it, forever!
I mean it also doesn’t make sense because kellynch could only be free if the father died and mr Elliot gave kellynch away… but I allways saw it that way that in the 2007 movie everyone else moved out of Kellynch. And the only contact Anne now has is to the musgroves and the Wentworth family. Two families she deeply love that also allways loved and supported her
What i think is more troubling is how Fanny Price never left her hyper toxic family but married one of them and even moved back in with them
Anne doesn’t do that in the 2007 adaptation. for me it always felt like re-start. Kellynch as a start in a better future.
While I see what OP means, and I need to finish my re read of the novel to be certain, I think Anne does have an attachment to the house, and also to the remembrance of her mother.
The Musgroves aren’t monsters either, and Henrietta’s marriage is more a factor of Mary not wanting the connection with the Hayters, and Henrietta wanting to have Wentworth as much as Louisa does, than of general family pressure to marry someone she dislikes.
Again, I see it, but it is also a point of “sir. Walter lost it all because of his wastefulness, Anne and Frederick deserve it more”.
I had a long response to this typed out but tumblr ATE it I’m livid. Long answer under the cut to save people’s dashes.
Oh, there are several things I have a problem with in the 07 version -especially when compared to the 95 version - and most of them happen at the end of the movie and completely do away with the established character of Anne.
Bath is a place where Anne feels trapped. She was forced to stay there when her mother died and now she’s back and events are spinning around her while she can’t do anything.
Meeting Wentworth at the concert, the question at the Pump Room, and The Letter are all moments when big things are happening but Anne has to stay still. Mashing the Pump Room and The Letter into one moment, and then shifting it from the Musgrove’s apartment to her family’s town house is just lazy storytelling - trying to force a sense of urgency where there is none.
The best thing about the letter is that Wentworth is FINALLY waiting for her. Forcing Anne to race through the streets completely does away with his growth. Like wise, Anne traveling on his ship is growth for both of them, Anne getting to move away from her small life and Frederick stepping back from his earlier statement of “no woman shall ever be on my ship”.
YEAH I mean i think i mentioned it but my biggest problem w the 07 as a whole is just that it cannot settle on a tone, and every tone it picks is wrong in a different way. The opening felt like a dirge (and almost put me to sleep) and then everything at Uppercross was just SO somber, but Anthony Head (bless him) and the girl playing Mary Musgrove had this like over the top thing going which was very very funny and like. Precisely correct for their characters except it was so woefully out of step with the funereal vibe of everyone else that it became jarring. And then like you said the ending they were trying to bring this sense of urgency but it was suddenly just so frantic! It was so stressful. That movie was just not a fun experience I wish they’d let Anthony Head and Mary’s actors try again but let them set the tone this time that would be such a fun film
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bohemiandreams99 reblogged this from mrdarcysdadbod and added: Well said! I hated thae movie, but the ending was definitely what frustrated me the most.
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YEAH I mean i think i mentioned it but my biggest problem w the 07 as a whole is just that it cannot settle on a tone,...
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this is why the Amanda Root version of Persuasion is the superior version
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