Mansfield Park

Modest and unassuming

Mansfield Park
ITV
27 January 2007
Historical Drama, Romance
DVD
C

Well, this is at least better than the 1999 Patricia Rozema big-screen travesty.  The truth is, no one wants to present Jane Austen's Fanny Price.  (The '83 TV-movie is better but does have the heroine hearing voices in her head.)  Much more than Emma Woodehouse, she's a heroine that (almost) no one but the author likes.  What's peculiar here though is how literal the title is.  Not only don't we see Portsmouth or London (even in flashbacks), but there's no Sotherton or even parsonage.  Every scene, whether it makes sense for it to happen this way or not, takes place in the mansion or grounds of Sir Thomas's estate.

A similar skimpiness means that supporting characters are erased, not just most of Fanny's family but the Grants, Mr. Yates, and anyone not absolutely necessary to the main action.  Even characters we see onscreen we don't necessarily get to know at all, and that includes Maria and Julia.  And then there are the characters who are simply misunderstood: a shrewd Lady Bertram and a slightly annoying but oddly attractive Mrs. Norris being the most obvious.

Which brings us back to Fanny.  Now, I'm not saying there might not be roles where a romping, laughing, bleached-blonde, pouty-lipped, cleavage-baring Billie Piper would be welcome (and not just Dr. Who or, going by her looks, porn), but this isn't one of them.  As always, when the shy, judgmental, but loving Fanny of the book is replaced by an impostor, I have to ask, to what purpose?  If she's perfectly capable of mouthing off to Mrs. Norris, or seeming to welcome Henry Crawford's attentions, then don't have dialogue that contradicts this.

What works here?  The costumes, sets, and music are serviceable.  Much of the dialogue remains intact.  Blake Ritson is quite good, until we get up to the Edmund-gets-twitterpated-with-love-for-Fanny sequence.  Still, I wasn't laughing bitterly like I was at the Jane Eyre adaptation of '97.  Verdict: for completists.

James D'Arcy is almost unrecognizable here as the dissolute but redeemable Tom Bertram, the polar opposite of his villainously priggish Blifil in '97's Tom Jones.  This adaptation is by Maggie Wadey, and the direction is by Iain B. McDonald, neither of whom worked on any other of my shows.