Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1973 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-03-19
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 120 minutes

Synopsis
In this adaptation of Jane Austen's classic book, poverty-stricken Fanny Price (Billie Piper) is sent away to live with her wealthy uncle and aunt at Mansfield Park. As she struggles to adapt to her new lifestyle she begins to attract the attentions of suitors, learning about the sexual politics of high society along the way.

Customer Reviews

poor stuff - a great disappointment
The main fault here I think is the screenplay. This version of 'Mansfield Park' omits a great deal and presents what it does present in a disjointed fashion. In comparison to the excellent (though somewhat liberty-taking) Harold Pinter TV version also on DVD, it is very poor. The acting is competent but everything seems very low-key and undramatic, despite the fact that Billie Piper as Fanny Price runs about a great deal in an eager girlish sort of way. I admire her as an actress, but here she is miscast. Fanny is supposed to be quite nondescript, someone you would not notice in a room, and Piper's appearance and manner both are immediately eyecatching. Replacing the ball scene with a picnic adds nothing and loses a lot. Lady Bertram isn't limp enough, the two Bertram girls come across as mere shadows, the Crawfords are nastier than they should be and Mrs. Norris is scarily mad ; Edmund and Sir Thomas, on the other hand, are both quite good. Crucially, Fanny's visit to her family in Portsmouth is not even there. There is absolutely no subtlety about this adaptation. I watched it hoping to like it but found it dull and occasionally irritating. Incidentally, the Pinter version which was made by Miramax and BBC, includes so much more of the text so effectively that I checked to see how much longer it was, and found to my surprise that it is almost exactly the same length as this adaptation - it's just far, far better done.

Badly miscast
A lot of readers find Fanny price boring, and she is by our modern standards - delicate, docile, good, quiet and uncomplaining. However, if you are going to make a film of this novel, then changing her character this much is cheating. If you don't like the main character in a story, then it's best to leave it alone. Billy Piper was dashing about the corridors and gardens of the screen Mansfield Park like a child who has eaten too many E-numbers. In the novel, Sir Thomas punishes Fanny for her first ever refusal to do everyone's bidding by sending her home to her original rather lowly home in Portsmouth. It is this circumstance that almost persuades her to change her mind. In this adaptation we are asked to believe that it is a punishment for her to be left alone with the free-run of a stately home whilst her aunts, one indolent, one spiteful, and her overbearing uncle go away on a trip - some punishment! Any good points? Well Blake Ritson (Edmund) is cute, lovely brown eyes. Douglas Hodge is convincingly scary and domineering as Sir Thomas. And for once, Mr Rushworth isn't played like a village idiot, making it possible to believe that the family would have agreed to Maria's marriage to him. The other adaptations in this series (so far) are better - Persuasion and Northanger Abbey.

Dreadful
I'm a huge fan of Jane Austen's books and of many of the film and tv adaptations. This adaptation, however, was so bad that I had to keep going out and making cups of tea - not in the commercial breaks. My toes were curling in embarrassment. The screenwriting was awful, the casting of Billie Piper was completely wrong, and there was far too much inappropriate running around and giggling.
The only actors I felt did well were the Crawfords. What a shame they weren't given a better production to work in.
Don't bother with this - save your money for the next two adaptations (Northanger Abbey & Persuasion) which are so much better.