BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

denisa-dellinger If you are a Janeite, as people who love all things Jane Austen, you are not gleeful about the latest adaptation of Mansfield Park. This latest BBC version of the classic seems to leave a sick feeling in ones stomach from the very beginning. Where does one begin? Characters: no character development whatsoever, wrong character traits in all of the characters and whole characters essential to the story left out. It seems that the writer just jumbled a few plot lines from the book and added a few of his or her own and moved the story along so quickly that no one had a chance to identify with the main character Fanny Price or any of the Bertram family for that matter. What or who brought the Crawfords into the neighborhood? Even these characters were shortchanged. Any hour and a half film would not do justice to any story but why with Masterpiece theater the main distributing network seek to put together a piece of shoddy work like this? They have done such mini series such as Downton Abby and other book adaptations so well that they have taken awards. Why slight poor Jane? or Fanny Price for that matter? It seems like they just decided one day to update the timeless stories written by the mistress of the 19th century novel and had a third grader write the screenplay. I have to say that the definitive Mansfield Park adaptation was done as a miniseries in the 80s. Fanny may have been a little stiff but she is by no means a hoyden or a perky girl with stringy hair worn down. Fanny never ran through a house in her life and would not be caught dead doing so, in fact, she was not a hardy strong girl at all although she did a lot of walking and was known to be a avid rider. There was nothing wrong with the casting. They only acted to the lines they were given so I do not fault them. I would like to give BBC a tip. When next considering adapting Jane Austen to the small screen, please use do use real authentic dialogue and real plot lines. Do not veer off and do your own thing. Those who watch are more knowledgeable that you and will catch you in your shoddy work and eviscerate you in it as seen in these previous reviews.

magy-4 The first and main - headache camera. Did ever cameraman heard about steady-cam device? Too fast moves, shaking, no single calm shot from stand. Example? In scene where Fanny and Edmund play badminton and Peter call them. I understand that TV movies have much lower budget than standard cinema movies, but still... there are TV movies pleasure to watch over and over. This one I couldn't stand for more than 15 minutes. Besides, choosing of actors was so poor, they simply didn't fit their characters. I feel they won't feel in their characters comfortably and play behavior of their characters so... forcibly. No speak about very bad screenplay. The version from 1999 with F. O'Connor is quite different universe. So my recommendation is - don't waste time with this version of Mansfield Park, you miss nothing. Really.

treeline1 Fanny is a poor ten-year old girl who has been sent away to live with her wealthy relatives at their home, Mansfield Park. There, her only friend is her cousin Edmond, whom she grows to love. When she is 18, new neighbors Henry and Mary Crawford come into her life; Henry has eyes for Fanny while Edmond is smitten with Mary.This Masterpiece Theatre version of Jane Austen's novel was really disappointing. The biggest problem was the casting of Billie Piper as Fanny. Her always-disheveled, bottle blonde hair and inexplicably black eyebrows weren't true to the period and she acted too modern and low class; none of her dialogue was believable because she looked so wrong for the part. She would have been better as a naughty chambermaid than someone brought up in an aristocrat's home. Another victim of inaccurate hair and make-up was Hayley Atwell (Mary Crawford) who had a 2007 hair style and sculpted eyebrows which were lovely, but completely wrong for the time. Her casual speech and flirtatious actions would have had no place in formal Regency society.The actors playing Fanny's aunt and uncle were too young and lacked a lord and lady's proper breeding. And the waltz danced in the final scene would certainly have shocked onlookers, if indeed it were even known at that time, but there was only pleasant reaction to the dance. All in all, this misguided film is visually distracting and sadly unconvincing.

didi-5 This is a really disappointing version of a clever book, with inappropriate characterisations and appalling acting from its lead actress. As Fanny Price, Billie Piper is just wrong in every respect - too modern, too flirtatious, and too aware of her station.However there are some compensations, even if the characters are portrayed with little reference to the original book - Douglas Hodge, Jemma Redgrave, and Maggie O'Neill are pretty good, while Blake Ritson has a decent stab at the role of Edmund.It just doesn't feel right or have the correct sense of period. It's a bit without character, and a missed opportunity.