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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.