Persuasion review – Dakota Johnson looks the part as Jane Austen gets Fleabagged

Classic story of a young woman talked out of marrying her true love is turned into a smirking, heavy-handed romcom

Jane Austen’s calm, subtle novel gets the Fleabag treatment in this smirking romcom; it has more wrong notes than an inebriated squadron of harpists, including everything but a last-minute rush in a barouche to Bath airport. Our demure protagonist Anne Elliot is forever doing supercilious takes and wry monologues to camera, taking despairing swigs from a bottle of red wine in private, occasionally nursing a quirky pet rabbit, and at the end (unforgivably) gives us a wink to seal the deal of our adoringly complicit approval. The final wedding scene invents for us a cutesy comic twist involving two distinct characters whose status and purpose this film gets very wrong.

The casting in itself isn’t the problem: Dakota Johnson looks and sounds the part of Anne, who eight years before has been persuaded to turn down a marriage proposal from the handsome but penniless sailor Wentworth, in which role Cosmo Jarvis does an honest job, with a touch of Firth/Grant in his shy-yet-grumpy reticence. Now Wentworth has returned to the neighbourhood, newly wealthy, prestigiously promoted and reportedly still in search of a wife, to lonely Anne’s mortification (she is still in love with him). Meanwhile, her family has fallen on hard times due to spendthrift snob father Sir Walter Elliot, amusingly impersonated by Richard E Grant. Her selfish sister Mary (scene-stealingly played by Mia McKenna-Bruce) makes claims on Anne which take her away to Lyme, where the pretty sisters of her brother-in-law Charles (Ben Bailey-Smith) involve Wentworth in diversionary romantic attractions. Her cousin William Elliot (Henry Golding), a smug claimant to her father’s baronetcy, makes advances to her, and she is still close to the mentor who disastrously persuaded her against Captain Wentworth: this is Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird), who in this version is someone who makes cougar sex-tourist tours of Europe (off camera).

Jane Austen books shouldn’t be holy writ for adaptations: the Clueless movie and Curtis Sittenfeld’s underrated comic novel Eligible show how you can take a free hand. And this film’s Bridgerton-style diverse casting arguably engages with the novel’s historical themes of imperial entitlement, properties in the West Indies, naval plunder and privateering. But there is something smug and misconceived and unpersuasive about it.

• Persuasion is released on 8 July in cinemas, and on 15 July on Netflix.

Contributor

Peter Bradshaw

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Persuasion review – a travesty of Jane Austen
Theatre director Carrie Cracknell’s ham-fisted adaptation misses the naunces of the author’s writing and opts instead for romcom sassiness

Wendy Ide

09, Jul, 2022 @10:00 AM

Article image
Modern Persuasion review – Austen in Manhattan is a load of old bonnets
This updated version of Jane Austen’s final novel is standard romcom fare –minus satire, wit and charm

Cath Clarke

03, Feb, 2021 @6:00 PM

Article image
Cha Cha Real Smooth review – Dakota Johnson has all the right moves
Johnson and newcomer Vanessa Burghardt carry this flawed but watchable comedy-drama from writer-director Cooper Raiff, who also stars

Peter Bradshaw

15, Jun, 2022 @8:00 AM

Article image
The Archies review – Riverdale goes to India for goofy lessons in capitalism
Relocated to north India in 1964, the comic-book class struggle here comes complete with romance and brilliant choreography

Leslie Felperin

07, Dec, 2023 @4:08 PM

Article image
An Austen expert's view of Austenland
Louise West was curator of Jane Austen's House Museum. What does she think of the US theme-park romcom?

Interview by Laura Barnett

07, Oct, 2013 @6:00 AM

Article image
The 50 best films of 2016 in the US: No 7 Love & Friendship
As our countdown continues, Catherine Shoard bows down before Whit Stillman’s revisionist yet traditional take on Jane Austen

Catherine Shoard

08, Dec, 2016 @11:46 AM

Article image
The 50 best films of 2016 in the UK: No 6 Love & Friendship
As our countdown continues, Catherine Shoard bows down before Whit Stillman’s revisionist yet traditional take on Jane Austen

Catherine Shoard

09, Dec, 2016 @7:30 AM

Article image
Emma review – Austen's sweet satire gets a multiplex makeover
Autumn de Wilde’s adaptation ramps up the comedy, but Anya Taylor-Joy remains wonderfully edgy as the meddling heroine

Mark Kermode

16, Feb, 2020 @8:00 AM

Article image
Cruella review – De Vil wears Prada in outrageous punk prequel
Aspiring fashionista Cruella is out for her boss’s skin in a riotous 101 Dalmatians origin-myth set in 70s London, starring Emmas Stone and Thompson in dynamic form

Peter Bradshaw

26, May, 2021 @1:00 PM

Article image
The Beanie Bubble review – plushie-craze toy story goes down the cute route
The true story behind the once popular children’s playthings is taken on here by a decent cast who can’t stop proceedings unravelling

Peter Bradshaw

20, Jul, 2023 @4:00 PM