Mansfield Park

It's true that this version is a bit long and should only be attempted by real aficionados of Austen's work. I prefer it to the 1999 version, but someone looking to be entertained for an afternoon ought to look elsewhere. I didn't mind the actress who played Fanny as much as everybody else seems to. I won't praise her acting, but found it not much worse than anyone else's. She looked the part so much more than Frances O'Connor and played it with the necessary timidity that the other actress completely ignored. Edmund, I thought, looked all wrong for the part. I suppose this is a debatable point, but I felt his features were too old and his expressions too severe. Edmund was meant to be serious but warm. It is a subtlety that I felt, unfortunately, neither he nor the 1999 actor got right. The worst choice was Henry Crawford. His portrayal was so off and confusing that I found it hard to focus on the rest of the film. The actor played Crawford so flamboyantly that it is hard to imagine he made so many girls fall in love with him. Those are all of my real complaints; otherwise I found it an enjoyable, faithful adaptation of a wonderful book.

If you enjoy Jane Austin's novels, this is the best of the two available versions of Mansfield Park. It is very true to the book, but lacks the beautiful production values and outstanding cinematography of the 1999 version that stars Frances O'Connor.

Fanny Price has always been a problematic character for Austin's fans. Many that read the book when it was published in the early 1800s found her unbearable compared to Austin's other, more spirited heroines. Sylvestra Le Touzel does a nice job in this very challenging role.

The best performance in the movie, though, is Jackie Smith Wood's Mary Crawford. Mary is beautiful, flirtatious, morally confused, good hearted and shallow, all at once. She is one of the more complicated characters in all of Austin's novels, and Jackie Smith-Wood plays her to the hilt. It's a mystery why such a terrific performance did not yield further opportunities, but her career seems to have evaporated after this role.

This is a movie for the more patient Austin fan. The pacing is measured, and the characters, particularly Edmund and Mary Crawford, evolve as the story moves forward. Mansfield Park, unlike Austin's other successful novels, is really about the failed love affair between Edmund and Mary. As a result, it is a more somber read than Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. The wedding at the end is a natural result of Edmund coming home to Fanny as the one stable element in his life.

It's a solid movie with good acting and a complicated plot. It is well worth seeing.

The actors weren't perfect, but they were mostly believable. Sylesta seemed to talk continually in a high tone, and didn't seem to fit comfortably into her role. But she was submissive yet resolute, as Fanny is supposed to be. I didn't feel Edmond was totally right for his role either. He didn't seem smooth enough or something. I liked Henry Crawford mostly, except he didn't make me fall in love with him when he addressed himself to Fanny. He wasn't convincing when he tried to woo Fanny- if he was i'd have fallen in love with him. He also had a curl of the lip that made him ugly- he would have been handsome without it. His sister totally hit the nail on the head though. And Lady Bertram was HILARIOUS! I loved her performance! Anna Massey as Aunt Norris was great too!

Low budget films and television productions have to be accepted for what they are. That being said, the 1983 Mansfield Park still has a distinctive on-location look and the cast is uniformly strong - Sylvestra Le Touzel has just the right mix of prettiness and austerity and Nicholas Farrell is excellent as Edmund.

Where the 1999 film sacrificed the book's moral subtlety for pretty obvious ends (Fanny becomes a sort of pseudo-feminist icon, but of course back in the eighteenth century, before it was cool) the 1983 film contains all the troubled morality of the book - its characters, many of whom are failures in way or another, are presented with sympathy and irony, and the faithfulness of the screenplay is infinitely to be preferred to the 1999 film's racy, but ultimately pedestrian value system.

I will agree with others that the production value of this mini series is a bit low. The acting is very stiff and is some places just unconvincing. For users of digital televisions the picture and sound quality is very low, but understandable since this production was made in the early 80s.

The thing that amazes me most about this rendition is how faithful it is to the book. If you loved the book, then you will also like the movie. I'm sure the costume designer and casting directors looked at the old Hugh Thomson illustrations. This most noticeable in the characters of Henry and Mary Crawford.

Lady Bertram is very much like she was in the book -except for her voice. I found it very odd! Rather overdone in my opinion. Mr Yates had a very strange hairstyle as well.

The locations and set were very nicely done. Sotherton and Mansfield Park are very much like the way I pictured them. There was one scene in Portsmouth where there was a matted background with ships. That was rather cheesy looking but it was the only scene that I was less than satisfied with.

This production lacks the polish of BBC's Pride and Prejudice (1995) but it is worth seeing for the serious Austen fan.