Continuing the Jane Austen film festival, we next watched Mansfield Park. I had not read this book and knew nothing about the story going in. The version we watched was the 1999 release with Frances O’Connor as Fanny Price and Jonny Lee Miller as Edmund Bertram.
Reading the book, the first thing that struck me was just how timid Fanny Price is – she basically suffers from a crippling anxiety disorder. In the movie, she refused Henry’s proposal by arguing with her uncle, in the book she mostly trembles and cries. (But still says no.) The trip to Portsmouth therefore comes across as a punishment for defying her uncle. In the movie, in the book it’s made very clear that her uncle is hoping that she’s just afraid of change and that absence will make the heart grow fonder so she’ll have second thoughts about her refusal. And of course it will serve as a reminder as to what it’s like to marry a poor man.
There are quite a few changes to the plot that make sense – one because a visual media needs to show things happening and two because there are many parts of the story that really wouldn’t make sense to a modern reader. Sir Bertram’s reaction to the play was less about the immorality of having young women “acting” in love with young men and more about the fact that they built a stage in his study.
Another example – in the book, Mary expressed her interest in Edmund becoming the heir if Tom dies in a letter to Fanny. Fanny is rightfully horrified, but Edmund doesn’t even know about it yet when he dumps Mary. He rejects her because she talks about “fixing” Maria’s reputation as if it’s the only issue with what she has done. For her, the problem is societal disapproval. For Edmund the problem is her infidelity and he’s horrified that Mary’s morals don’t consider that the real issue.
In the movie, Mary talks to the whole family about Edmund having access to the family funds as part of her advice on how to rehabilitate Maria back into society and that’s what offends Edmund. (And rightfully so in my opinion, that shit is cold.)
There are also some scenes that are added to the movie just to make the story more interesting to show on a screen. Tom is just a selfish party boy in the book, but in the movie he is a drunk because he is clearly traumatized by what he witnesses of his father’s role in the slave trade. There is even mention at the end of the movie of him divesting of the slave trade and getting into some other form of speculation. I read the Wikipedia article about Mansfield Park and it claims that the book is critical of the slave trade, but if it got more than a passing mention I didn’t notice it.
The movie also came up with a legitimately clever way to explain how completely hopeless and helpless Lady Bertram is – she is an laudanum addict. Listen, I grew up in the 60s and Mother’s Little Helper was a legit thing – all the women who worked drank and all the women who didn’t were hooked on Valium.
In this particular case I definitely like the movie more than the book. In part because I suffer from anxiety and the constant self-doubt and terror of being perceived by the main character was more than a little oppressive. Also the middle part really dragged out for me, lots of paragraphs were devoted to how the Crawfords and the Bertrams became close and lots of comings and goings of rich people trying to entertain themselves and I just don’t find that terribly interesting. Also the book goes into how Edmund decides he loves Fanny, but not how he courts and marries her. That is definitely a flaw in any romance.