Miss Austen Regrets Review: No Regrets Here

In anticipation of Miss Austen Regrets airing in the UK on Sunday, April 27th, I have resurrected my review that was posted on the PBS blog, Remotely Connected for the US premiere in February. The movie is a treat, and it was a pleasure to write about it.  I hope that the UK viewers enjoy it as [...]

Read Full Post »

Sense and Sensibility: Conflict of Heart Over Head: Episode Two

“I, and only I, knew your heart and its sorrows; yet, to what did it influence me? — not to any compassion that could benefit you or myself. — Your example was before me: but to what avail? — Was I more considerate of you and your comfort? Did I imitate your forbearance, or lessen [...]

Read Full Post »

Withstanding Sense, or Sensibility: Review of Episode One

 
Marianne began now to perceive that the desperation which had seized her at sixteen and a half, of ever seeing a man who could satisfy her ideas of perfection, had been rash and unjustifiable. Willoughby was all that her fancy had delineated in that unhappy hour and in every brighter period, as capable of attaching [...]

Read Full Post »

Miss Austen Regrets Review: Rumination or caveat?

 

“You will have a great deal of unreserved discourse with Mrs. K., I dare say, upon this subject, as well as upon many other of our family matters. Abuse everybody but me.” The Letters of Jane Austen, 07 January 1807 
The new biopic Miss Austen Regrets aired tonight on PBS, and like Miss Austen’s multi-layered novels that [...]

Read Full Post »

Miss Austen Regrets Early Reviews: Spoilers Alert

 

Fanny Austen’s match is quite news, and I am sorry she has behaved so ill. There is some comfort to us in her misconduct, that we have not a congratulatory letter to write. Letter to Cassandra Austen, 20 June 1808

The early reviews for the new PBS biopic Miss Austen Regrets are at large, and they [...]

Read Full Post »

Mansfield Park Review: No Hope of a Cure

 
SELFISHNESS
 “My dear Miss Price,” said Miss Crawford, as soon as she was at all within hearing, “I am come to make my own apologies for keeping you waiting; but I have nothing in the world to say for myself-I knew it was very late, and that I was behaving extremely ill; and therefore, if you [...]

Read Full Post »

Northanger Abbey Review: An Austen Adventure

 
ADVENTURES 
 if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village,
she must  seek them abroad. The Narrator on Catherine Morland,
 Northanger Abbey, Chapter 1 
After viewing that pensive Persuasion adaptation last week on The Complete Jane Austen on PBS, I was all fired up to be shaken out of my Jane Austen adaptation stupor with Northanger [...]

Read Full Post »

Persuasion Review: “almost too good for me”?

 
  “You may perhaps like the heroine, as she is almost too good for me”.
 Jane Austen, 23 March 1817, Letters of Jane Austen
Was Sally Hawkins performance as Anne Elliot too good? I think not so.
I do not know what to think of her interpretation of our tragic heroine in the PBS presentation of Persuasion on Masterpiece Classic last night. I am [...]

Read Full Post »