Netflix's "Persuasion" Missed the Jane-Austen-Adaptation Boat

The 2022 film is visually stunning but lacks the depth of the novel. Here’s why.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

(See what I did there with that title? It’s a pun. Because of the Royal Navy. And ships. And the ocean. And… okay, I’m killing E.B. and Katharine White’s frog here.)

I recently finished reading Jane Austen’s last novel — what many consider to be her masterpiece. Persuasion was completed in 1816 and was, by Austen’s own account, “ready for publication,” but her death in 1817 preempted its release. It is her most reflective work: slow-moving, contemplative, focused on the inner life and repressed emotions of its subdued heroine. Though Austen’s trademark wit is on full display in her characterization of people like Sir Walter Elliot (“vanity was the beginning and end of [his] character”) and Mary Musgrove (“my sore-throats, you know, are always worse than anybody’s”), she toned down her typical social satire in order to delve deeply into the heart of a woman who did not fit the mold of the fashionable literary heroine.

Ironic, then, that when Netflix undertook to film an adaptation of this novel, they should have changed this heroine into something more appealing to a contemporary audience, and left the woman Jane Austen created behind.

Netflix’s 2022 movie, starring Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis, was not the first adaptation of Persuasion I’d seen (I did enjoy the 2007 movie, and even more so the 1995 version). I tried to enter the experience with an open mind and a charitable heart, but alas! Such amiability quickly proved insufficient for this movie’s offerings. I live-tweeted a play-by-play as it went, hoping against hope the modernized dialogue and careless characterization would get better, but my hopes were dashed like Louisa Musgrove on the rocks at Lyme.

(Louisa fared better, though. She recovered from her traumatic brain injury and lived happily ever after with someone who adored her.)

How Netflix Sees Anne

Netflix’s Persuasion has very little to recommend itself. It is pretty to look at, to be sure. Attractive people abound; beautiful scenery is beautifully shot; even the costumes are mostly decent for the time period, with a few glaring exceptions (such as Anne’s magenta dress for the concert scene; a color which had not yet been invented and was not available for dyeing fabric in 1814). Many of the novel’s most memorable lines and passages have been tritely updated to suit a 21st-century ear. The story is greatly truncated to fit into a two-hour film, and yet all this might have been forgiven if the central character of the story had been allowed to be herself.

Dakota Johnson’s Anne Elliot is smirking and sarcastic; she tipples wine and tips winks to the camera with startling frequency. Her running monologue of quips is offered both to the viewer on the other side of the fourth wall and to her fellow characters alike; she speaks her mind without filter, without finesse, and without apparently giving a fig for the source material. She is wry, snarky, and often impolite. We are given a constant window into her thoughts, with very little understanding of what makes her voice those thoughts. She is the black sheep of the family, and rather than pity her for being disdained by her father and sisters, one has to wonder what it is that anyone finds likable in her at all.

None of this is an attack on Ms. Johnson — she did a lovely job with the character she was given to play. The problem is, that character is not Anne Elliot.

The Elizabeth Bennet Effect

Jane Austen’s most famous novel is Pride and Prejudice, and her most famous heroine is Elizabeth Bennet. Indeed, Elizabeth Bennet has become something of a synecdoche for Austen heroines on the whole; she has made such an impression on pop culture that people assume any main character of Austen’s creation must needs be quick-witted with an acerbic tongue. Not only is this untrue, attempts to shoehorn characters like Anne Elliot (and Fanny Price of Mansfield Park) into this box are doomed to fail.

Netflix’s Anne Elliot is an attempt at a copy of Elizabeth Bennet, and not a good one. In trying to replicate Elizabeth, the filmmakers missed the lively playfulness of Elizabeth’s disposition, the earnestness of her quick judgments, and the tact and decorum she exhibits that make her a heroine to emulate even as she overcomes flaws in her character. Elizabeth is witty and funny, but she is not rude or drama-seeking (two characteristics of this film’s Anne).

Anne Elliot of the novel is generous and compassionate, self-effacing and retiring. She is quiet, but not blind (okay, sorry, that’s another Fanny Price descriptor). She is cool-headed in a crisis, quick to discern good character, slow to assume the worst, reliable and steady and loyal. As a young girl, she was persuaded to break her engagement to a man deemed unsuitable for her class and position; as a mature woman, she regrets that choice and longs for love again. The sadness she has walked through has not embittered her, but made her empathetic, reflective, and more sure of her own mind and her own sense of right and wrong.

The iteration of Anne Elliot in the Netflix adaptation misses this mark entirely. She’s not even a poor approximation of the bright, sparkling Elizabeth Bennet — she’s Emma Woodhouse at Box Hill, trying too hard to be clever and to impress, firing off zingers and letting the chips fall where they may.

That’s not Elizabeth. That’s not Anne. That’s unbecoming of a true Austen heroine.

Yes, Jane Austen had a rapier wit and a morbid sense of humor and a keen eye for satire. She was funny. Quotes from her novels are sprinkled across bumper stickers and coffee mugs. And, in some ways, this movie succeeded in being funny. (“If I was interested in gaining perspective by thinking of the poor, I’d ask you the rate charged by your barber.”) But the quips weren’t Austen-funny; they were a pale shadow. They gave a quick laugh that revealed nothing about the complexities of human nature. If you only see Austen’s tote bag quotes and not the context that packs their punch, you’re not getting it.

Austen was a humorist whose pen laid bare the whims and inconsistencies of her culture and era. But she was also a moralist. In many ways she was ahead of her time; in many ways, she embodied it.

What Makes a Heroine

Virtue is a key element in each of Austen’s heroines’ character journeys. The self-possession (despite the sarcasm) of Elinor Dashwood, the caring compassion (despite the smugness) of Emma Woodhouse, the honesty and loyalty (despite the prejudice) of Elizabeth Bennet, the generosity of spirit (despite the drama) of Marianne Dashwood, the firm principles (despite the priggishness) of Fanny Price, the sweet nature (despite the gullibility) of Catherine Morland: all of Austen’s heroines point us toward a better version of ourselves.

Netflix’s Anne does not.

She learns nothing of herself, regrets none of her own actions, resolves no good, makes no change. Without giving too much away, I will tell you she completes her narration of the film with a blithe reminder to follow your heart and find love on your own terms, “however unorthodox.” But without the grounding of Anne’s character, the happy ending is a flimsy one.

In trying to update this story for a postmodern audience, perhaps the filmmakers succeeded more than they realized: they abandoned Austen’s themes of virtue, patience, steadfastness and willingness to admit wrong and sacrificed them on the altar of a nebulous “do what feels right; at least, as long as the guy is a 10.”

(Yes. The phrase “he’s a 10” was uttered by a character who lives in 1814. I metaphorically had the vapors.)

To reduce Jane Austen’s genius to a kiss and a wedding and a few country dances and empire-waisted dresses is to completely miss the heart of her writing. Her books are about the formation of character, not pinging the plot points of a rom-com. Her stories have endured for 200 years — and survived translation to the modern day, when done well (think of Clueless and The Lizzie Bennet Diaries) because of what she has to say about the timeless foibles of human nature, not because romantic things happen to her characters.

Sweet, naive Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey made the mistake of believing one is a heroine if interesting things befall her. But romantic circumstances do not produce a real heroine any more than witty repartee or looks to the camera as if one is on The Office. The person with whom we should sympathize — the person we should want to be — is the heroine who does what she knows to be right, whose conscience is her compass and whose steadfastness will triumph in the end.

The true heroine is a rational creature.

And she knows that the book is always better.