I have to say that although I am still generally disappointed, this has improved the more I watch it.

The casting is at least faithful to the book, with the exception of Mrs. Norris and Fanny. Billie Piper is a good actress but I just don’t get her “look.” I still think she would’ve been much more effective if her hairstyle was at least appropriate. Maggie O’Neill is too young, IMO to be Mrs. Norris. I always pictured someone in her 50s and much less fashionable. The rest of the cast is superb and I particularly liked Blake Ritson, Joe Beattie and Jemma Redgrave in their roles. I think they are the best Edmund, Henry and Lady Bertram to date. Michelle Ryan (Maria) and Catherine Steadman’s (Julia) roles are so small that they are rather forgettable, unfortunately. I like Joseph Morgan, too, as he made William Price quite adorable.

I’m very sad about the exclusion of Portsmouth and the move to have a “picnic” instead of the proper ball. Big, big mistake!

Beginning was too rushed. Even after reading the book countless times, I still felt like it was MP on fast-forward with too many characters introduced at once. I can see how novices would be very confused!

Still, however, it is a vast improvement over Patricia Rozema’s version eventhough we were once again treated to a running-around-like-a-wild-little-girl Fanny. Lady Bertram was altered, too, (in a good way) but it was a welcome “improvement” to the drugged-up woman in the 1999 version.

I loved Blake Ritson. I’m not a fan of Edmund but he made him engaging and charismatic and had the intensity and proper chemistry with Billie that worked well. Joe Beattie is quite charming and handsome but with a bad boy edge. I liked Hayley Atwell as Mary Crawford although I thought her costumes not quite as glamorous as Maria Bertrams. Isn’t she the sophisticated London girl? She was too understated, in my opinion.

All in all, a worthwhile adaptation although I wish it was much longer than the 1 1/2 hours. It deserved at least a 3-hour running time to do justice to the book.

Well, there was a lot wrong with it, but, like Julie P., I enjoyed it more than I expected. Fanny’s hesitancy and timidity combined with her absolute moral strength is such a lynch-pin of the story that you cannot turn her into a young lady who’s always running at full gallop throughout the house (albeit with moral strength) with hair flying and bosom heaving without losing something essential. To say nothing of no Sotherton and Portsmouth. She also seemed to have only one facial setting for Longing Looks At Edmund, which were frequently employed.

That aside, the longing was made much clearer than I’ve ever felt before, certainly more so than in the other two adaptations, and even (dare I say it) than in the book. It underlined the poignancy of her situation in a way that engaged me more than I’d expected. Everybody else looked, and most acted, their part very well. It was the best Maria Bertram I’ve ever seen. One of my main quibbles was the lack of nuance in Mary Crawford. I can hardly see, except for her lovely appearance, why Edmund would fall for her. There is very little of that ‘ready good nature’ and appearance of kindness which so charms him in the book and blinds him to the fact that the mind, indeed, is ‘tainted’ (until her reaction to Maria’s fall). She is cynical, mercenary and hard from beginning to end. “Shake me,” she says to him at one point, “and you won’t get a serious word out of me.” And because that’s the personality she’s been given, it’s also completely incomprehensible why either of them would even be attracted to each other in the first place. It was Mary’s mixture of being able to recognise and value good but still (in the long run) making lax judgements and bad choices that makes her such an intriguing character. We are not given any insight whatsoever into why she is even considering this younger son and clergyman with his 700 pound per year. The script left out the ‘better’ part of her nature, and it detracts from the credibility and complexity of the overall storyline. That being said, there were moments that I found the actress absolutely hypnotic in the part.

This Aunt Norris was less a mean, bustling, officious busybody than just an incredibly hard and cold woman. In the book, she initially struck me almost as a comic character, and it was only after a number of re-readings that I realised what a truly nasty piece of work she is. Here, she is not constantly contriving things with all her talk and explanations. She is actually rather reserved, but somehow more venemous. So, for me, the film highlighted that aspect of her character in a new way.

Not enough justice was done, either, in the potential of the Fanny-Crawford relationship, although it did hint at her possibly-maybe-growing willingness to perhaps-someday accept him. Huh… if I read what I’ve just written it sounds like they got the Fanny-Edmund-Mary-Crawford dynamics all wrong – so how could I have found it anywhere near enjoyable? I have no idea. I also found the birthday picnic absurd, William’s hornpipe dance (or whatever it was) ridiculous, to say nothing of the silly wedding reception and all the attendant social and historical inaccuracies – Edmund popping into Fanny’s bedroom while she’s washing her hair in her nightgown? C’mon!!!

But still, it jarred me less than Rozema’s version. I can only think it’s because they really emphasised the heart of the matter – Fanny’s despair at seeing the man she loves enthralled by a woman who is incapable of truly appreciating his worth. Of course that was part of the other adaptations to date, but it’s somehow more obvious here. A kind of a Paint-By-Numbers Mansfield Park. It will never satisfy any real lover of Austen and all her subtleties, but if it inspires any new ‘elves’ to pick up a copy of the book, I shall not complain.