Since its release on streaming platform Netflix on 15 July, the movie adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion has received a lot of criticism online and currently has a 5.6 out of 10 rating on IMDB. People were quick to compare dialogue from the movie with Austen’s words, and many were not a fan of the style in which the story was told.
On Twitter, one user shared a quote from the novel: “There could have never been two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.” An image from the movie was shared along with it, in which Anne Elliot, played by Dakota Johnson, looks at the camera and says: “Now we are strangers. Worse than strangers. We are exes.”
The same user, Julie Johnson, shared another Austen quote: “She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.” In the movie, Anne sums this up as: “Because he is a ten. I never trust a ten.”
Persuasion, the movie, has hints of the storytelling method used in Fleabag, where Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who created the show and also stars in it as “Fleabag”, constantly breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience. However, unlike Fleabag, Persuasion fails to use this method to make an impact on the audience. It is almost like a watered-down version of Fleabag; like a middle-school reproduction of it that just lacks way too much to have any redeemable qualities.
If we are to move away from other TV of film comparisons, the next obvious comparison would be between the book and movie. While Julie Johnson’s Tweets as well as those posted by others give us a clear indication of how people felt about the adaptation, the movie did receive some positive reviews as well.
However, it raises those much-discussed questions about movie adaptations of books and what we expect from them. Are novels, especially classics, untouchable? Can movie directors never stray from the original source and add a spin to a story that has been read and reread a thousand times? Must a movie adaptation be a scene-to-scene remake of the book or are some deviations permitted?
Here’s a confession: I have never read Jane Austen and I may never read Jane Austen. The closest I have come to reading Jane Austen is an abridged version of Pride and Prejudice, but all I remember of the story is from the 2005 film directed by Joe Wright. Jane Austen isn’t an author I personally hold sacred and so, the Netflix production, in my mind, can never be compared to Austen’s work.
And as such, I can watch Persuasion and even share my thoughts about it without a pre-held bias towards the novel. This is perhaps how we need to watch all movie adaptations, since they are two distinct creations, catering to two different audiences.
With this version of Persuasion, for instance, maybe the target audience is different. The movie may get a higher rating by those who enjoy the “man and woman in love who spend the entire movie beating around the bush before finally confessing their feelings to each other” storyline.
Looking at the reception that movie adaptations tend to get, how many of us can say with confidence that we can watch a movie adaptation without expecting it to be similar to the book? And how many can say we aren’t at all bothered or disappointed by the differences?
As readers, if we hold books, the original, sacred and in some instances, untouchable, then what do the authors think about their work being retold on screen? Of course, Jane Austen cannot share her thoughts on the Netflix remake, but one can assume, as one Twitter user said, that she is rolling in her grave.
Looking at other authors, Stephen Chbosky, for instance, was happy with the adaptation of his novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Of course, he played an active role in the movie, as he was both director and writer.
In a 2012 interview, he said: “When I started, because I was a first-time studio director and I knew that there could be challenges or scrutiny, I was much tighter at the beginning. I was very fiercely protective, and then over time I realised everyone’s just trying to help make a great movie. That’s all anyone cared about.”
He went on to say: “What I learned is how much people have in common and how people share the same fears and the same passions and the same desires to be free of whatever it is that’s binding them,” Chbosky said. “It’s a much bigger tent than you think it is.”
Meanwhile, in a 2016 interview with Teen Vogue, Lauren Weisberger spoke about The Devil Wears Prada, saying a phenomenal job was done with the movie. “It absolutely could’ve gone another way and it could’ve been another fluffy, rom-com, chick flick that you watch, enjoy, and then promptly forget about. But the team that worked on it was so incredible.”
She added: “As an author, you don’t always love the way your book gets adapted into movie form, but I could not be more happy about it.”
When asked about the changes between the book and the movie, Weisberger said she was happy with them since books and movies are such different mediums. The author explained that she had three hundred pages to tell a story, where as a movie script is much shorter.
“The main difference I noticed other than the ending was the fact that in the film, they needed all of the characters including Miranda Priestly to be really well-rounded and multi-dimensional. In my book, I totally didn’t make her that way. She was just the villain and at times, not only Andi’s boss, but her enemy. That worked best for the book, but not on the screen.”
Stephen King didn’t share the same sentiments about The Shining, which was directed by Stanley Kubrick. In various instances, King has described Wendy as “one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film” and has also described the movie as being very cold.
“I think The Shining is a beautiful film and it looks terrific and as I’ve said before, it’s like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it. In that sense, when it opened, a lot of the reviews weren’t very favourable and I was one of those reviewers. I kept my mouth shut at the time, but I didn’t care for it much,” King is quoted as saying.
Whether it is a classic like Persuasion, young adult fiction like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, or horror like The Shining, perhaps the only way to appreciate the novel or the movie adaptation without making a comparison between the two – which tends to favour the novel – is to stick to only one medium.
