‘Persuasion’ Isn’t Great, But It Isn’t That Fucking Bad
It may be Fleabag without the emotional vulnerability (or hot priest) and Bridgerton without the sex, but it'll do just fine for a hungover Sunday on the couch.
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About two-thirds of the way into Netflix’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Anne Elliot, played by a British (!) Dakota Johnson, shares a weird dream to help break up an awkward silence. “I have this dream that a giant octopus is sucking my face, and as I struggle to get free, I realize that my hands are tenantless and I can’t push it off,” she says. “Then I realize, of course, that I am the octopus and I am sucking my own face.”
The awkward silence only grows more awkward until Mr. William Elliot, played by a fully clothed Henry Golding, responds, “Perhaps the next time you meet an octopus Miss Elliott, you should embrace them rather than try to detach.”
Persuasion is that weird, cloying octopus that’s only being mentioned because we are desperate for something light and fluffy to talk about. And critics, while they certainly don’t need to run off and start a whole new life with the damn thing, could maybe chill out a little over the fact that this made-for-streaming movie wasn’t adapted, cast, filmed, and edited by Austen herself. The writers, maybe, could’ve trusted the audience a bit more to get their jokes without having to hammer us over the head with them, but the movie did not make me want to claw my eyes out and move deep into the woods.
We meet Anne about eight years after she left the love of her life because her family told her he was not rich or noble or, well, mostly rich enough—and she has not gotten over it. Enter the anachronistic dialogue, which comes in hot with Anne ironically describing herself as “single and thriving.” Her life is only made more miserable by her awful, narcissistic family—whose narcissism, while meant to be satire, still may be a little too obvious. (It’s worth a mention that Richard E. Grant, who plays Anne’s father, is a fucking delight to watch.)