Mansfield Park (1999)

Director:

Patricia Rozema

Writers:

Jane Austen (novel)
Patricia Rozema (written by)

Release Date:

19 November 1999 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Comedy

Tagline:

Jane Austen's Wicked Comedy

Plot:

At 10, Fanny Price, a poor relation, goes to live at Mansfield Park, the estate of her aunt's husband...

Plot Keywords:

Drug Addiction | Class Differences | Estate | Family | Melancholy

Awards:

4 nominations

Cast

Hannah Taylor-Gordon	...	Young Fanny (as Hannah Taylor Gordon)
Talya Gordon	...	Young Susan
Lindsay Duncan	...	Mrs. Price / Lady Bertram
Bruce Byron	...	Carriage Driver
James Purefoy	...	Tom Bertram
Sheila Gish	...	Mrs. Norris
Harold Pinter	...	Sir Thomas Bertram
Elizabeth Eaton	...	Young Maria
Elizabeth Earl	...	Young Julia
Philip Sarson	...	Young Edmond
Amelia Warner	...	Teenage Fanny
Frances O'Connor	...	Fanny Price
Jonny Lee Miller	...	Edmund Bertram
Victoria Hamilton	...	Maria Bertram
Hugh Bonneville	...	Mr. Rushworth

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief violent images, sexual content and drug use.

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

South Korea:15 | Malaysia:U | Iceland:L | Australia:M | Germany:6 | Hong Kong:IIB | Netherlands:AL | New Zealand:M | Singapore:PG | Spain:T | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Charlestown, Cornwall, England, UK

Company:

Arts Council of England

Trivia:

Jonny Lee Miller who plays Edmund Bertram in this version of Mansfield Park, played Fanny's young brother Charles Price in the 1983 mini-series of Mansfield Park.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: The music we hear does not correspond to the fingering of the harp. In particular, the lowest notes should sound from the longest strings, i.e. furthest away from the player, not as shown.

Quotes:

Fanny Price: It could have turned out differently, I suppose. But it didn't.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)

Soundtrack:

Djongna (Slavery)

No thank you

Jane Austen's usual themes (love, snobbery, the place of women in society) are all addressed in this film of 'Mansfield Park', but fans of the book claim that the film is unfaithful to the original. Not having read it, I can't comment on that, but whereas I enjoyed Douglas McGrath's 'Emma' and Ang Lee's 'Sense and Sensibility' (both praised as faithful to their texts), 'Mansfield Park' is certainly less successful, losing coherence but gaining stridency compared to those works. In 'Emma', for example, the joy was in a precocious young heroine gradually learning that there were things she did not know; but haughty Fanny Price, the main character in this film, is always right, witty, invariably possessed of good judgment and anachronistic feminist attitudes - in other words, completely unbearable. Some of the dialogue seems similarly out of time, the young Fanny and her sister are inexplicably played by a couple of self-consciously adorable American kids, and audience is consistently encouraged to apply modern values to judge the characters. Other things also seem odd (Fanny has lived with the family for many years, but they continually treat her as if she had just arrived; the social placement of Fanny, her aunt and mother are never explained; and as Fanny and the leading male are mutually in love throughout the story, it's hard to see why it takes them a whole film to get together).

If one scene serves as a good example of what's wrong with this film, it's when Fanny catches a suitor in flagrante with another woman. Jane Austen wrote highly subtle dissections of the social structures around her, disguised in the form of acceptable romances - that's the merit of her work. The beauty of the story lies in the form of its telling. The absence of explicit sex from (some) old books isn't necessarily a failing, just as you don't necessarily improve a classic thriller by remaking it with bigger guns and louder explosions. It's a small scene, but one senses that director Roezma doesn't really understand her own material. A disappointment.