Reviewing Jane: A Quick Succession Of Busy Nothings

In which we review (almost) every film adapted from or inspired by the works of Jane Austen, as I read through her extended bibliography for the first time.

Year: 1999

Director: Patricia Rozema

Cast: Frances O'Connor, Jonny Lee Miller, Alessandro Nivola

Run Time: 1 hour 52 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Mansfield Park has been described quite rightly as Jane Austen's most controversial novel, though not for the steamingly erotic reasons the marketing of the 1999 film would seem to suggest (and don't get your hopes up folks, suggestion is all there is). Mansfield Park is essentially a morality play, Austen's most po-faced and didactic work in her entire short career. The way it enforces the etiquette and strictures of Regency society can be punishing to modern readers, and requires a lot more context than most of her other work. It is not a novel for the impatient, so adapting a film from the story necessarily required a lot of adjusting and rearranging. Let's see how they did!

So far, so busty.

Mansfield Park tells the story of Fanny Price (Frances O'Connor), a poor young woman who was sent at the age of 10 to live with her rich relations: the tyrannical imperialist Sir Thomas Bertram (the playwright Harold Pinter), the lazy opium addict Lady Bertram (Lindsay Duncan), and their children, the entitled drunkard Tom (James Purefoy), the well-mannered nice guy Edmund (Jonny Lee Miller), and prissy, boy-crazy daughters Maria (Victoria Hamilton) and Julia (Justine Waddell). In the book, Fanny Price is a bland, passive character who is tossed around by these careless, larger-than-life personalities.

That didn't really work for making her the protagonist of a movie, so they have her a personality, and that personality was literally Jane Austen's. In a montage they show Fanny writing most of Austen's juvenilia (her early, posthumously published work), and they force her into the "anachronistically modern girl sarcastically fighting against the foibles of her time" mode in which most portrayals of Austen or her most beloved character Lizzy Bennett can usually be found. This completely and utterly destroys any reason this particular story had to exist, but whatever. Their lives get tangled up in lusty and romantic twists and turns when the seductive brother and sister Henry (Alessandro Nivola) and Mary Crawford (Embeth Davidtz) come to visit. Drama ensues.

They're certainly dressed for it.

We do really need to dig deep into the character of Fanny Price. She's the moral center of the book, and while there's no denying that she's a boring stick in the mud, there's literally no point to the story if she's not boring. She's supposed to be the steady center amidst the chaos of youthful licentiousness and adult hypocrisy whirling around her. By making her interesting, the story loses its lynchpin and the wheels rattle off, sending it all crashing to the ground.

It doesn't help that the other changes made to the material are entirely superficial, like adding a fresh coat of paint to a wall that's full of sledgehammer holes. As I already mentioned, this film was billed as a sexy, steamy romance, that element mostly relegated to a pair of scenes that require an extremely  liberal reading of the source material to mutate Mary Crawford and Fanny's relationship into a bizarrely sublimated lesbian affair. It's nonsense that exists only to be provocative, and it barely succeeds at that because of the way it pulls its punches, demurely hiding behind its implication.

The other major embellishment on the source material is the addition of a much more prevalent angle on slavery. In the book, it is only mentioned Sir Thomas Bertram has property in the South American colony of Antigua, though readers at the time would probably be aware he held slaves. But that fact is drawn into the light here, making his slave-driving an important facet of the narrative and the drama between his character and Fanny Price. Unfortunately, Mansfield Park completely fails to make any point about slavery and the way the family profits from it. It's just one more ingredient to some overbuild melodrama, and the big conflict about it (involving some way-too graphic depictions of rape and torture) is resolved offscreen, so it's obvious once again that the filmmakers were too shy to actually go through with their bold reinterpretations.

I mean, what's the point when we could be watching straight white people almost kiss?

Really, Mansfield Park is a thorough waste of time. But there's at least a spark of what the film could have been. It's still funny, as almost any Jane Austen adaptation has to be - at least briefly. The standout character is the same as the novel: Sheila Gish's manipulative, self-indulgent Aunt Norris. Her pert little reactions to hugely tragic situations are amusing to be sure, and any scene with her in it seems to perk up a bit, even visually speaking. She is present for most of the visually creative moments Mansfield has to offer. In fact, perhaps the best is a smash cut to the death of Mr. Norris, as described by Fanny in a letter to her sister (these letters, which are presented by Frances O'Connor speaking directly to the camera, are the only other times that the movie actually tries to accomplish something stylistically unique).

These sequences are few and far between, but the movie has the gall to end on a beautiful series of tableaux that gently break the fourth wall as we follow each of the characters' fates in the epilogue. When Mansfield Park actually uses the medium of cinema to breathe life into one of Austen's most lifeless novels, it accomplishes a great deal, but unfortunately they're mostly content to have the narrative crumble around them just like the walls of the titular manse.

The romance here isn't even compelling. Whereas in the novel, we see Fanny pining for her cousin throughout the entire story (gross), here her more active character causes him to pine for her, which deflates every scrap of drama that is supposed to be created by his fervent, blind interest in Mary Crawford. I'm not here to complain that they changed details from the novel. This is what movies do. But did they have to change the detail that fundamentally fuels the entire romantic conflict? It's monumentally fatiguing. Every choice that was made in this adaptation was the wrong one, and the budget doesn't provide for sets and costumes lush enough to redeem it by at least allowing you to sink into cozy period domesticity.

I obviously have a lot of patience with these things, so please don't take my warning lightly. Don't waste your time with this one.

TL;DR: Mansfield Park is a waste of time, embellishing a book that's not that interesting in a way that makes it even less interest.

Rating: 5/10
Word Count: 1140
Other Films Based on Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park (Rozema, 1999)

Mansfield Park (MacDonald, 2007)

We've Got Spirits, Yes We Do!

For our Scream 101 episode about this film, click here.

Year: 2016

Director: James Wan

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Frances O'Connor

Run Time: 2 hours 14 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Really, the most spectacular thing about The Conjuring 2 is that original director James Wan actually returned for it after being offered a revolting amount of money to helm Furious 8. This is only the second sequel Wan has directed to one of his own films. While I was excited to see him returning for the follow-up to his pretty unequivocal best work, the last time he sequelized a movie, things got a little ugly. So it was with more than a little trepidation that I approached this one, but I can now officially say with a sigh of relief that The Conjuring 2 is leagues better than Insidious: Chapter 2.

Although that bar is so low it’s practically subterranean.

So, the plot. The Conjuring 2 has a more satisfying, tighter story than the original, although it necessarily runs into some of the same pitfalls: this film still has no idea whether it’s dealing with a ghost or a demon and in the process of telling its “true story” it continues to stolidly profess the undying verisimilitude of infamous paranormal hucksters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), something that always rubs my ectoplasm the wrong way.

But anyway, this – after all – is just a movie. It’s 1977. The Warrens are taking a sabbatical after an experience at a haunted house in Amityville (never heard of it)  has left Lorraine rattled. Their post-Amityville media tour has also gone haywire, with naysayers denying their claims left and right. When the church asks them to investigate a happening in England  (to make sure it’s not just one more of a rash of hoaxes before they get involved), Ed convinces Lorraine to come along because they never deny a family in need.

The family in question is down-on-her-luck matriarch Peggy Hodgson (Frances O’Connor) and her four children. Her youngest girl, Janet (Madison Wolfe) has become a conduit for a spirit who died in their house that has been tormenting them for weeks, or so they claim. Is this a real paranormal event or a ploy to get better housing? The Warrens are joined by believer Dr. Gross (Simon McBurney) and skeptic Anita Gregory (Franka Potente) to document the case.

Roll film, Lola, roll film!

There are certain things The Conjuring 2 does very well that utilize its nature as a sequel to actually better itself. The rapport between audiences and the Warrens has already been built, but instead of leaning on that crutch to paper up some quick and dirty exposition, screenwriters Chad and Carey Hayes (with Wan) use this to deepen their relationship and take it to the next level. You see, around the edges of this taut little supernatural shocker is a surprisingly rich love story. It’s not the most complex work in the world, but Farmiga and Wilson nail their chemistry. And the film’s structure commits to its tone, never allowing the romance to fade into the background, even in the gonzo third act setpiece where most movies of this ilk seem to forget that they were even telling a story at all, converting their characters into shrieking pinballs.

Now, the structure of the A-plot is a whole nother ballgame. While it’s much more linear and straightforward than the tangled mess woven by The Conjuring, at times it’s a hair too eager to tie up its loose ends. Two key plot points in the finale are solved with deus ex machina so brutally efficient that they shear off all but the barest residue of tension.

It’s a little too easy, like an episode of Dora the Explorer has been spliced onto the finale of an R-rated ghost story. Plus, the production design so viscerally yearns to foreshadow a third act reveal that you can practically feel it drooling over your shoulder. Imagine if M. Night Shyamalan had put little gravestones on Bruce Willis’ tie in The Sixth Sense, or put a huge poster of Ghost in his bedroom. This doesn’t ruin the flow of the movie in any terribly meaningful way, but it’s a bit of a letdown after a solid buildup.

I get let down, but I get up again. You’re never gonna keep me down, Hollywood.

A little better, a little worse. Seeing how this is a horror sequel, we should be glad to have any of the former, let alone in the abundance we get here. Before we move on, let’s step off at two more of these. First, the production design is astounding here, turning a crummy British subdivision into a gothic nightmare castle using oppressive slate greys, subtle decay, and a balls-to-the-wall flooded basement that makes an impression even among the endless parade of creepy basements that is the horror genre. And then there’s the comic relief, which is warm, perfectly spaced out, and genuinely humorous, striking a balance that the more overtly wacky Insidious movies haven’t yet achieved.

But what of the scares, Brennan? They are, after all, the reason $40 million worth of people went to see it this weekend. Rest assured, Wan brings his almost metronomic perfection at shooting and timing jump scares in a way that makes them seem unexpected and elegant. Of course, they’re only jump scares, but he does them so well. Probably the most chilling scene in the film is a single, drawn-out shot that slowly alters your perception of reality using camera focus, but – you know – the jumps are good too. There is a certain haphazard approach to the buildup of the scares, trundling out some Big Boos then expecting us to still get scared by rocking chairs and whatnot, but for the most part it gets the job done.

I’ve always said that James Wan has made a career out of cribbing tropes and elements from pre-existing horror classics and repackaging them for newer audiences. Of course that’s what happens here as well, although he has amassed a large enough body of work that he can start copying himself now, too: haunted toys, elderly ghosts, and women in face paint abound, along with quotations from The Exorcist (obviously), Poltergeist, The Haunting, and even newer properties like Sinister or Oculus. It gets a little wearisome at certain points, but the individual elements of the film are strong enough that even the weaker patches don’t dull the shine.

The Conjuring 2 is a terrific sequel, more or less succeeding at matching the tone and pace of the first film and even fostering some improvements. Its weaknesses are perhaps more glaring and bothersome, but you could hardly expect a better result for a haunted house Part 2.

TL;DR: The Conjuring 2 is a worthy sequel with some diminishing scares but the same sure-footed classicism as the original.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1149
Reviews In This Series
The Conjuring (Wan, 2013)
Annabelle (Leonetti, 2014)
The Conjuring 2 (Wan, 2016)
The Nun (Hardy, 2018)
The Curse of La Llorona (Chaves, 2019)