Winner, winner, lavish seven course dinner, as a member of the Ton would almost certainly never say. Unfortunately in this case, all the box-ticking in the world can’t fix a film that tries to juggle extreme cynicism with heartfelt romance, no matter how hard the likable cast tries. Dakota Johnson, who had a jolly good crack at making the Fifty Shades movies watchable, has her work cut out once again as Anne Elliot, the middle daughter of three. As a young woman Anne was in love with a sailor named Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) but was persuaded not to marry him by her godmother and confidant, Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird) since he was not a man of means or standing in society. Eight years later Anne is single and pining, and in her “second bloom” (as in a bit older than many of Austen’s heroines). Wentworth, of course, returns, now a rich and celebrated naval captain, and Anne is still hopeful they might reconcile. But it looks like that ship has sailed… Meanwhile her family are pure pantomime. Richard E. Grant as her conceited father preens amusingly in wicked stepmother mode; the oldest daughter Elizabeth (Yolanda Kettle) sneers with ugly-sister-esque camp, and needy youngest Mary (Mia McKenna-Bruce) is a whiny caricature of modern entitlement. She moans about made up ailments and can’t be bothered with her kids; instead she opines about learning to love herself. Perhaps only Henry Golding as the charmer-smarmer Mr. Elliot, Anne’s alternative suitor, manages to traverse the tonal weirdness by being both charismatic and sinister without turning into a boo-hiss baddie. Still, even his final romantic beat is mishandled and comes from nowhere. Modernizing a Regency era story while keeping it in its own time period can work really well—Bridgerton was a joy, Autumn de Wilde’s Emma. was a moderate success depending who you ask, and the recent Mr Malcolm’s List, which is yet to hit UK cinemas, is already garnering positive reviews from critics and audiences in the U.S.. But Persuasion falls uncomfortably between stools by trying to be both a ‘messy millennial woman’ story and genuinely and sincerely romantic at the same time. It’s a pity since Johnson and Jarvis, who was astonishing in his breakout Calm With Horses, have palpable chemistry. Heaps more, in fact, than her and her Fifty Shades co-star Jamie Dornan. No amount of spanking can top the sexual tension of Anne and Wentworth sat opposite each other in a carriage, or the dry ache of their goodbye as he prepares to leave for sea once again. “Are we finished?” he asks. “I ‘spose so,” she replies, neither cracking their veneer, both dying quietly inside. Unbelievably though, Persuasion even doubles down on its self-sabotage right to the end with a ‘did you get the joke?!’ nod, and an actual wink to camera cutting through the couple’s happily-ever-after moment. Jane Austen’s final novel is often considered her most mature, and Anne one of her most grounded, melancholic heroines. Netflix’s Persuasion is neither. Instead this Anne is the Regency era equivalent of the cute cool-girl klutz, spilling gravy on her hair after too many vinos, blurting out inappropriate comments at a dinner party, all the while hiding a searing inner pain. Or not so inner, in this case since we the viewers are her secret confidants all along. Persuasion is available to stream now on Netflix.
