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Persuasion 2022

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In Theaters

Cast

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Reviewer

Emily Tsiao

Movie Review

Who needs romance when you have family?

Then again, most families aren’t as exasperating as Anne Elliot’s.

Elizabeth, Anne’s elder sister, is a “celebrated beauty and Somerset’s most fashion-forward luminary.” Anne’s younger sister, Mary, is a complete narcissist married to Charles Musgrove, heir to the “superior” Uppercross estate.

Sir Walter Elliot, their father, is the “sole object” of his own warmest respect and devotion. And the only thing he likes more than his own reflection is spending money—even when there’s none left to spend.

Anne would love to escape. But according to her, there are only two ways to do so: marriage or death.

Unfortunately, Anne doesn’t see either option in her near future. Eight years ago, she was persuaded not to accept Frederick Wentworth’s offer of marriage because of his lack of rank or fortune.

She’s been told to “abandon all hope” regarding Wentworth. But Anne can’t help herself. She still holds a torch for the young sailor, who has since gained both rank and fortune, rendering her family’s original argument against the match null.

Wentworth hasn’t written Anne since she broke his heart—not that she blames him—but he also hasn’t married anyone else. So, as Anne says, “Hope springs eternal.”

Especially since Wentworth is visiting Somerset for the summer.

Positive Elements

Anne and Wentworth’s reunion is an awkward one, and they almost act like strangers. Anne even notes that Wentworth’s “cold politeness and ceremonious grace” are worse than “open hostility.” However, the pair eventually makes amends, forgiving each other for past wrongs and agreeing to be friends.

Although Anne’s family can be unbearable, she has good friends. Mary’s sisters-in-law, Louisa and Henrietta, adore Anne and frequently praise her many virtues and talents. (And Anne’s better treatment of their mutual nephews than the boys’ own mother doesn’t go unnoticed.) When someone talks poorly of Anne behind her back, Louisa defends her. And later, when Louisa becomes interested in Wentworth, she consults Anne first to make sure Anne won’t be hurt if Louisa pursues him for herself.

Lady Russell, the best friend of Anne’s late mother, cares for Anne after a motherly fashion, offering insight and helpful advice. She apologizes for the misery she inadvertently caused Anne by telling her not to marry Wentworth when he was poor. She explains she was trying to protect Anne and encourages her to find love elsewhere (and from someone who will fight for her). And Anne reassures Lady Russell that she’s more upset with herself for being persuaded than she is at anyone else for doing the persuading.

We hear that marriage is, unfortunately, usually transactional for women. However, Anne often shuts down this type of thinking. She says a woman without a husband is not a problem to be solved. She asks a man to call her a woman instead of a “creature.” She advises several men to trust their future wives with managing their own emotions. And Wentworth is praised for being a man who actually listens when women speak. He also comments on the lack of career options for women (which were limited in English Georgian society) and apologizes for overstepping his bounds in “defense” of a woman’s honor.

As I mentioned in the introduction, Mary is deeply narcissistic. Luckily (and perhaps at the behest of her husband), she begins to consider the feelings of others as the film goes on. In “shockingly self-aware” moments, she recognizes that people don’t always want to spend time with her since she dominates the conversation.

When Wentworth practically ignores Anne, Mary at least tries to stand up for her sister. And by the film’s end, at the recommendation of her doctor, Mary works to embrace an attitude of gratefulness, especially when things don’t go exactly the way she wants them to.

We hear that a man rescued a beached whale. Anne is kind to a grieving character.

Spiritual Elements

Two people talk about the “universe’s” plan. A man believes his noble rank was given to him by God. People wed in a church. Anne shows a note passed in church that says “BORED!”

Sexual Content

Couples kiss and cuddle.

We occasionally see Anne in a bath from the shoulders up. Women sometimes wear dresses bearing cleavage. A woman says she doesn’t want someone else’s “naked skin” touching her bedsheets while she is out of town. Anne squats and adjusts her skirts to use the bathroom in the forest but stops when she notices people nearby (and we see nothing).

A woman makes a joke about marital infidelity. After proposing marriage to one woman, a man then makes out with another. (The first woman had not accepted his offer yet and wasn’t upset when she discovered his duplicity, since she was in love with another man.) A different man feels guilty for leading someone on.

Lady Russell, who is a widow, says she hasn’t remarried because she prefers her own company. However, she says she goes on “European tours” when she gets lonely (and a pamphlet describing these tours as “elegant and discreet” indicates that the tours are sexual in nature). A man makes some sexual innuendos.

Louisa attempts to flirt with Wentworth by jumping from some stairs into his arms. She then climbs to a higher stair and attempts it a second time with disastrous results…

Violent Content

… Wentworth fails to catch her, and she gets a concussion from hitting her head in the fall (though she later makes a full, if slow, recovery). We hear that a young boy broke his arm after falling from a tree and later see him in a sling. Anne trips and injures her foot. Wentworth admits he put himself in dangerous situations while serving in the Navy because he wanted to distract himself from his heartbreak. We hear that a man’s fiancée died while he was at sea, just before they were set to be married. It’s said that Sir Elliot threw a tray of canapés across the room when his nephew refused to marry his daughter.

Crude or Profane Language

None, but a woman says, “What in God’s name?”

Drug and Alcohol Content

People drink throughout the film at social events and dinners. However, Anne drinks much more than others (and she pseudo-admits to using alcohol as a coping mechanism for her heartbreak). At one point, Anne gets drunk, shouts at Wentworth and then accidentally spills oil all over herself. In another scene, we see her hungover after a night of heavy drinking. She also hides the fact that she is taking a full bottle of wine up to her room for herself.

Other Negative Elements

Elizabeth and Sir Elliot are terrible to Anne. They make rude comments about her appearance. And their constant put-downs often serve to bolster their own vanities. (They admit the only reason they included her in an article about the family was so that people wouldn’t think she had died.)

When the Elliots are forced to vacate their home (due to overspending) and rent it out to others, they instruct Anne to use itchy bed linens and ban anyone from entering the gardens so the new tenants can’t enjoy themselves. When Anne suggests that reputation is built on honesty, integrity, compassion and accepting responsibility for the welfare of others, they scoff and voice their disdain for giving to charities. And later, they press themselves upon some distant (but noble) relations to make themselves look good.

Although Mary begins working more on her character near the film’s end, she’s still a deeply selfish person. She invents a number of ailments to garner pity from her friends, which then double as an excuse to escape the simplest of tasks. Then, when she does rally herself to, say, stay with an ill friend, she makes herself out to be the hero so as to earn the admiration of the people around her. At one point, she manipulates Anne into staying with her injured son because she is “an empath” and would take his suffering upon herself too strongly. And it’s clear that while she enjoys the status of being married, she hates being a mother (and is neglectful of her children).

While vying for a woman’s attention, two men exchange thinly veiled insults and posture towards each other to appear the greater man. Mr. Elliot tricks his uncle into believing that he never insulted him in the past (even though the insults were made directly to Sir Elliot). He accomplishes this by pretending to be interested in marrying Elizabeth. He then admits to Anne that he has no desire to marry Elizabeth but simply wants to stop Sir Elliot from remarrying and potentially siring a son (who would then usurp Mr. Elliot as heir).

Louisa tells Anne that she should pretend to be dumb and ignore Wentworth in order to earn his affections—and that she shouldn’t “be herself” until at least the second year of marriage. Though Anne brushes this off, Louisa uses these tactics herself later on.

Some parents tactlessly pry to find out if a man is marriage-minded. While trying to wound Wentworth, Anne blurts out that Mary’s husband, Charles, originally wanted to marry Anne. And later, we hear that Charles’ family wishes he had.

Someone jokes about flatulence. A woman says she loves gossip.

Conclusion

Who needs romance when you have family? Well, Anne Elliot for one.

If Anne had ignored her family’s prejudices when Wentworth first proposed, she might have saved herself eight years of heartache. But Anne made her choices, and she had to live with the consequences of those choices.

However, Anne also learned something from the experience. She learned how to handle her family’s eccentricities and judgement. Not that her sisters’ degrading remarks still don’t bite, but perhaps they don’t cut quite as deep.

And who’s to say that if Anne had accepted Wentworth’s proposal the first time around that things would have ended happily ever after? Certainly by waiting a few years, Wentworth was able to secure a better social and economical status. Perhaps the wait also helped the couple to develop some sense and sensibility, to put pride and prejudices aside.

But whatever the case, love prevailed, leading to not just one but four happy marriages by film’s end.

Families wanting to watch Persuasion, which is based on the Jane Austen novel, will find that it’s about as squeaky clean as the book was.

Anything noted in the Negative Comments section is recognized as bad behavior in the film as well. In fact, the crudest thing to notate is a joke about infidelity and a widow’s comments about taking European tours for “company.” When that’s as “bad” as things ever get, you know you’ve got a period piece drama that’s as counterculturally good as almost anything you’ll find at the theater today.

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Emily Tsiao

Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.