GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

johnpelaro Having read the book and having enjoyed the fine Masterpiece Theater adaptation , I took this film for what it aimed to be...Sexy and sensationalistic . The portrayal of Fanny price is totally ridiculous , although Frances O'Connor is certainly first rate eye candy , and talented as well . This gentle , somewhat timid young lady ...the novel's heroine , is depicted as a sharp tongued and ever self confident modern day woman in this farce . It must be added that the book is a very serious one , and certainly not a comedy ! Well , it is entertaining , but it is a far cry from Austen's Mansfield Park ! The references to slavery and the disgusting sketchbook scenes relating to it add nothing to the novel's theme . The positive ratings many have given this film speak only to our modern obsession with cheap thrills and prurience . Do yourself a favor , if you truly loved the book , and check out the 2007 adaptation !

david-megginson Jane Austen's Fanny Price is a challenging character to understand: torn away from her family and socioeconomic sphere at 10, she loses all sense of self-worth, and shrinks into a profound insecurity where all she has to cling to are her middle-class moral values. The novel is the story of how those eventually prove stronger than the values of the rich family she's been pushed into. It would take a talented and sensitive filmmaker to bring her character to the screen.So these filmmakers didn't bother. Instead, they sent an Elizabeth Bennet clone to Mansfield: witty, vivacious, playful, and easy for the audience to like. The thing is, this isn't Pride and Prejudice, and the story and challenges no longer make any sense. I gave up after 20 minutes.I'll keep waiting for a good Mansfield Park movie. 3/10 for at least picking up (however clumsily and inaccurately) on Austen's subtle references to the slave trade.

sawphil Well, if you like to see half-naked bosoms (now called by more common names) with great frequency, here's your chance. The actors are quite attractive and right for their roles, but they're not given any substantial roles by the vapid and totally distorted script. It was made for people with very short attention spans, which is understandable. The world and the web are so full of distractions that very few probably have the patience to read Austen's novel, her most complex and longest and, in many literary critics' views, her greatest. Far inferior to Colin Firth's and Barbara Ehle's Pride and Prejudice or Emma Thompson's (scriptwriter) version of Sense and Sensibility. Kate Beckinsale and Mark Strong also produce fine characterizations in their performances in Emma.

secondtake Mansfield Park (1999)A remarkably clear-headed film that make Jane Austen real and alive. The heroine here is perhaps even a bit like Austen—though the actress is prettier, by all accounts—and it includes letters read by the character that are seemingly Austen's words. But what the cast and director Patricia Rozema pull off here is fabulous. There is no one reason this movie works so well, except of course the really scintillating, funny writing of Austen herself. The lead character is Fanny Price, played with true joy, angst, and subtle wit by Frances O'Connor. The two men who court her on and off are strong enough as men to be convincing, but they are perfectly still young men, barely more than boys in years, and they have those youthful flaws. Which is part of the fodder for Austen's wit.And social observation. If you don't quite catch the way she plays social classes against each other you miss part of the substance. It isn't just that the poor niece ends up at the rich uncle's house, but that this same niece has the perception to see through their facades. And to keep mum until just the right moment.This isn't a liberation film where the woman charges to victory in a big speech or by a power play. Instead—and this is one reason Austen is still readable today—the woman simply comments on the issues in a way that makes clear her more advanced views, and the obstacles slowly fall away through outside circumstances (rather than her own doing). The passivity of Fanny Price might bother some people, but that's exactly her role, as a character, in this pageant.One last point—slavery. This is the one novel of Austen's that gets her in trouble for her languid views on the uncle's use of slaves in the West Indies. The movie seems to twist this into a more modern condemnation, which helps us stay sympathetic to the whole shebang. There is even an added scene of sketches (done in a way rather like Goya's socially critical drawings of the same time, with some Kara Walker thrown in) which make clear the crisis at hand.If you want to dip into Austen through a movie, choose between this and the 2005 "Pride and Prejudice" and you won't be disappointed. Of course, if you want to read the book—that's even better. More modern and fresh than it "should" be for 200 years ago.