A note about the critic. While I am a devoted Austen-ite, her final, posthumously published novel Persuasion is not one of her works that particularly captures my imagination, good as it may be. Thus, I am somewhat inoculated against people fucking with it, which probably explains why I'm not illegally downloading a copy of Netflix's Persuasion 2022 and burning it onto DVD in order to have something to snap in half, which seems to be the general response to the film. But enough about what other people have to say. They have no business here. We're here to goddamn talk about Persuasion.

For those who aren't familiar with the story (which is entirely possible, considering it's one of Austen's least-adapted works and certainly a title one only approaches after encountering eg. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma), Persuasion follows the story of one Anne Elliot (Dakota Johnson). Anne has a problem. See, eight years ago she was courted by the handsome but poor sailor Frederick Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis). While she was deeply in love with him, family friend Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird) advised her to break it off, as she was above making such an improper match. For lack of a better word, let's say Anne was persuaded to do so.

Now, the tables have turned. Anne's father Sir Walter Elliot (Richard E. Grant) proves to be much better at spending money than making it, and they are forced to relocate from their grand countryside pile. And who should be related to the new tenants but Wentworth himself, who is coming to visit in a few short days? Thus, the man, now a rich captain, is thrust back into Anne's life, and she must endure the twin torments of taking care of her venal relations' every whim and watching him becoming progressively ensnared by her beautiful family friend Louisa Musgrove (Nia Towle).



So, here's the thing. This isn't a regular adaptation of Persuasion. It's a cool adaptation of Persuasion. Forget modernizing Jane Austen and setting her stories in a high school or a gay vacation destination, we're marching straight back to Regency England and bringing the stench of 2022 with us. The sense of humor is updated to a more modern milieu, replete with Fleabag-style fourth-wall-breaking asides to the camera, while the dialogue incorporates certain elements of modern slang. Don't fret, it's nothing so tawdry as "you're canceled" or "OK, boomer" or whatever the fuck is going on in the Bodies Bodies Bodies trailer, but it's certainly not anything Austen would have let flow from her pen.

Does it work? Well... Only intermittently. When it uses modern topics to highlight certain core elements of Austen's characters, it frequently works quite well. Having Anne's self-obsessed hypochondriac sister Mary (Mia McKenna-Bruce) describe herself as an empath isn't exactly the stuff of genius, but it is drawing connections between something that was there on the page and the annoying traits a modern audience might recognize. McKenna-Bruce is an excellent living caricature, by the way, and both she and Richard E. Grant frequently hoist the film onto their backs and sprint off with it.

However, less welcome is Anne Elliot being transformed from a typical Jane Austen heroine into a wine-swilling singleton that really just asks Johnson to reprise her role from How to Be Single with a British accent. The film frequently equates "recognizable" with "clever" and is nearly always incorrect in this assumption. I don't mean to throw Johnson under the bus, however. Her Phoebe Waller-Bridge mimicry is one of the most consistently engaging elements of the film, and while it does the script no service to ask her to do exactly what Fleabag was doing, at least that is a very good thing being done well. This element unfortunately drops off somewhat as the film reaches its emotional climax, at which point it ultimately reveals its hollow core.



(Oh yeah, Henry Golding is in this movie too. I didn't mention him, because if you mention every character in a Jane Austen story, the heat death of the universe will come sooner than the end of your synopsis.)

Where was I? Oh yes, the romance. Unfortunately for this movie, Jane Austen wrote rom-coms. They intermittently mastered the com, but the rom eventually must rear its ugly head. Then you're stuck with Cosmo Jarvis' egregiously miscast Captain Wentworth. Jarvis has been a completely satisfying performer in other films, even other films inspired by the works of the greats of English literature. However, he is poison to every scene of Persuasion that foregrounds his character.

I would say that the performance feels like he was directed into thinking he was starring in a more straight adaptation than this film intends to be. But frankly, on top of that, it seems like somebody instructed him to read every line of dialogue like he's an alien delivering a telegram. He has less than no chemistry with Johnson, and any scene they share sucks the life out of her as well. Thankfully, Persuasion is one of Austen's most longing-from-afar-heavy books, so this does not happen too often.

I would hazard ruffling some feathers by admitting that, to my taste, there has yet to be a "definitive" adaptation of Persuasion as there has now been for Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma. Unfortunately, we're still looking, but if you're just looking for one more hit of Austen before the next splashy adaptation, this 2022 entry will do you just fine, even in spite of its unsettling Wentworth. No more than fine, but fine all the same.

Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80's slasher movies than he has any right to. He's a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.