#1. Persuasion (1995)
Sense and Sensibility had Emma Thompson and an Oscar, while Pride and Prejudice has Mr. Darcy. Most Jane Austen die-hards have seen the movie version of Mansfield Park and even Emma.
Persuasion, in my experience, causes people to scratch their heads. Persuasion?
The movie has no marquee stars (although Ciarán Hinds has one of those I’ve-seen-him-before faces). But it has two things that are better: a heroine who longs to travel and the British town of Bath:
“I should very much like to see Lyme again,” said Anne.
“Indeed! I should not have supposed that you could have found anything in Lyme to inspire such a feeling.”
“The last few hours were certainly very painful,” replied Anne; “but when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure… We were only in anxiety and distress during the last two hours, and previously there had been a great deal of enjoyment. So much novelty and beauty! I have travelled so little, that every fresh place would be interesting to me.”
The movie–originally a BBC TV movie, of all things–was shot in Bath, located to the west of London. As a sightseeing town, Bath has many layers: the original Roman baths that are its namesake; the beautiful Georgian-era city of Jane Austen’s time; the unfortunate mall that seems to crowd out much of the charm of today’s downtown Bath.
It’s a lovely place, despite the sometimes crass attempts to cash in on the Jane Austen connection. I’m a sucker for a view of something like the Bath Abbey:
When I was there, it was an incredible thought to me to share the street with so much history–never mind the Romans, but with the people like the kind I had seen in Persuasion. I actually watched the film one night when I was there. It was rainy and dark, and I was exhausted. I curled up with tea and butter cookies, though, and fell in love with this quiet, sleepy, less-famous Jane Austen film that captures the soul of this great artist and this great town.
Someone has posted the first 10 minutes, in case you want to check it out for yourself:
I would love to visit Bath! I always think of Chaucer's Wife of Bath before Austen.
Persuasion is my favorite Austen novel! I feel most connected to Anne of all the Austen heroines. I actually own this DVD :)