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| Persuasion |
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List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $19.99
You Save: $7.96 (28%)
Buy New/Used from $19.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 258 reviews)
Sales Rank: 405
Category: DVD
Actors: Amanda Root, Ciaran Hinds, Susan Fleetwood, Corin Redgrave, Fiona Shaw, John Woodvine, Phoebe Nicholls, Samuel West, Sophie Thompson, Judy Cornwell, Simon Russell Beale, Felicity Dean, Roger Hammond, Emma Roberts, Victoria Hamilton, Robert Glenister, Richard Mccabe, Helen Schlesinger, Jane Wood (ii), David Collings
Director: Roger Michell
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Studio: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Label: Sony Pictures
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 104 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0767836634
UPC: 043396039520
EAN: 0043396039520
ASIN: B00003JRCQ
Release Date: February 1, 2000
Theatrical Release Date: September 27, 1995
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Movie adaptations of Jane Austen's classic novels were all the rage (relatively speaking) in the mid-1990s. Clueless updated Austen's Emma, which was more conventionally adapted in another version (Emma) starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Emma was produced yet again, this time for British television, as were a celebrated miniseries of Pride and Prejudice and this splendid film of Austen's Persuasion. Persuasion is the story of a love that survives eight years of dormancy and the frustrating obstacles of class prejudice in 19th century England. Anne (Amanda Root) is captivated when she meets the dignified naval officer Capt. Wentworth (Ciaran Hinds), but she is advised to discourage his romantic overtures because he has no fortune. They meet again eight years later, but now Capt. Wentworth has become wealthy while Anne's father is in reduced circumstances in the wake of reckless extravagance. A series of circumstances ensue which prevent Anne and Wentworth from expressing their mutual and inevitable love. The film's success depends entirely on the subtle, superb performances of Root and Hinds. The film builds slowly, occasionally leaving you wondering if anything at all is going to happen. When it does, you realize how carefully crafted a film this is, and the final result is grandly rewarding. --Jeff Shannon
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Customer Reviews: Read 253 more reviews...
 Persuasion, dvd and book July 17, 2006
the book was what i expected-jane austeny
the movie was very good
 Best Austen film adaptation, bar none. July 11, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Persuasion may not have the wit of Pride & Prejudice, the morality of Mansfield Park or Sense & Sensibility, or the delightful twists and turns of Emma and Northanger Abby, but it is probably Jane Austen's most mature and achingly romantic story. By the same token, this film version of Persuasion, while perhaps lacking the glamourous faces and costumes that adorn the flock of Austen films produced in the mid-1990's, is far and away the most faithfully adapted movie of the lot. Nick Dear's script is beautifully spare, relying on the subtly expressive faces and gestures of a cast that is absolute perfection. Filmed completely on-location, and using only natural light, every scene seems to have been painted directly from Miss Austen's imagination.
 ok July 8, 2006
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was hoping for a little more drama and emotion, but, it was ok.
Good if not great July 4, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Before my wife and I sat down to watch this version of Persuasion, by Jane Austen, I read the storyline, out loud, from the back of the DVD case. It was a good thing I did, because without doing that there would have been no way to discover what was going on or where the plot would lead.
In short, the hero of the story returns to find the woman who'd refused to marry him several years before still unmarried and with few prospects. After some awkward encounters they're thrown back together and the spark returns to their relationship. Apparently, this is not far-removed from Jane Austen's own life story and maybe why she was able to write about it so well. Jane never married but her heroine in this story does and may go on to live happily ever after, last time we see them aboard his ship.
This DVD is worth having and re-viewing, but buyers shouldn't expect a "Pride & Prejudice," or even an "Emma." Whoever did the film editing removed about 30 to 45 minutes more than they should have to make a complete story. Acting, scenery, and character diversity are fine. But we expected more of a novel, vs. a short story.
Persuasion July 3, 2006
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
"Good company is always worth seeking."
"My idea of good company is the fellowship of clever, well informed people, who have a great deal of conversation and a liberality of ideas. That is what I call good company."
"That is not good company. That is . . ." (If you want to know the rest of the line, then rent the movie).
During her lifetime Jane Austen published her novels anonymously - a choice common for female authors of that time. One of my favorite college professors had a sentence on a piece of paper on his office door. It said, "I'd rather be reading Jane Austen." In the early 1800s, before psychology was a science, Jane Austen, an unmarried young woman, had the audacity to publish her thoughts on the workings of the inner mind.
This is an excellent movie adaptation of Austen's final novel, a novel she wrote when her health was failing and she probably knew she had little time left to express what she had to say. Reading the cast list for this movie is a "Who's who" of great actors: Amanda Root, Ciaran Hinds, Corin Redgrave, Sophie Thompson, etc. The acting is terrific. There are certain movies that are so good that I don't wish to comment too much on the movie itself because it is not improved by my commentary. Other movies in that category include Emma Thompson's Sense & Sensibility (which it should be noted Ms. Thompson added many of her own sensibilities to the screenplay).
Austen's characters are often caught up in an internal dialogue, constantly re-evaluating the decisions of the past. In Austen's era, these thoughts were made more desperate and consequential because romantic love could only be found in one other person. Her characters are constantly jockeying to gain power, stature, & wealth through social, exclusivity contracts. For Austen's characters, the one person is usually separated by distance, time, or rules of society. Austen comments on how the mind seems to concentrate on the imprinted loves of the past (See Spielberg's "A.I."). Her heroines tend to think there was a person in their past whose character so well matched their own, that to be reunited would bring some fulfilment. And in her novels, often the two are combined in the end, defying the odds and rewarding their moral behavior and steadfastness. The reader can see that the two are not just imprinted on each other; rather, there are many good reasons why their chemistry works well.
"Captain Wentworth . . . You have an extraodinary ability to discompose my friend sir."
This is true. The book is titled "Persuasion". It is not titled "Control". The protagonists in the movie argue regularly with the intent to be persuasive, not to be controlling - and that is an essential distinction.
"Perhaps you have not been in Bath long enough to learn to enjoy these parties they give."
"They mean nothing to me. Those who hold them believe the theatre to be beneath their dignity, but I am no card player."
"No. You never were, were you?"
Jane Austen, as a young woman was a genius ahead of her time, and in some ways is still ahead of our time. Great authors and artists find a way to speak to their generation in a way that both respects the status quo, yet somehow uses metaphor or narrative to look on the status quo's priorities from a new perspective. For example, Willa Cather's "My Antonia" may be one of the first great works of lesbian literature (although most people would probably disagree with me). That book certainly is not written from an ordinary male "voice", even if the narrator is male. Similarly, Jane Austen questioned every social construct around her and tried to illustrate the conflicts that the social systems created against the natural, moral drives of the human psyche. Her debate has fascinated us for hundreds of years.
The movie is not about "old, boring people who lived hundreds of years ago." Like all her novels, this movie is robust and a worthwhile social discourse today.
(If you have feedback, please let me know or email me.)
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Copyright Runningonkarma.com 2006
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