User Reviews

Altogether a decent adaptation of Northanger Abbey, but not the best. A few quibbling details took away some of my enjoyment but on the whole, it was good hour-and-a-half of literary fun and looks to be better than next week's Mansfield Park.

Pros: 1. It was well-cast.

JJ Feild was, appearance-wise, pitch-perfect as my beloved Henry Tilney. He looks just as Jane Austen described him: dark haired, tall, though he stooped a bit much for one whose "address was good." Also, he was pleasing to the eye without being jaw-droppingly handsome. I liked his voice very much -- it was similar in pitch actually to Mark Dymond's, which seemed to indicate kinship, to me, anyway. On his interpretation, it may have been a bit too morose at times for my conception of Henry -- he always struck me as buoyantly confident -- but while I generally see Henry as a bit zanier, I rather liked Feild's more deadpan spin.

Felicity Jones also was a good bit of casting. She looked like Catherine Morland as I imagined her -- freshly pretty without being overwhelmingly so -- and I liked very much her Catherine. She was innocent without being irritatingly saccharine, and I found her transition as believable as it possibly could be in the compressed amount of time.

Mark Dymond was very dashing as Frederick Tilney, Carey Mulligan and Catherine Walker as Isabella and Eleanor played their contrasting parts astonishingly well, Sylvestra La Touzel was amusingly shallow, and William Beck was appropriately boorish and stupid. Good.

2. The good parts of the dream sequences. I liked the illumination of Catherine's fantasies, although I really would have liked to hear more of the witty dialogue between Catherine and Henry and a scene at Woodston more along the lines of the book. We fall in love with Pemberley and Darcy, with Donwell Abbey and Knightley; I really wanted to see Henry in his native environment.

3. Dancing and women's costumes. Very nicely done. Catherine's dresses were appropriately simple for her character, Eleanor's were rich yet modest, and Isabella's were characteristically flamboyant. As for the dancing, heck, it adds some movement to the Bath scenes.

4. The fact they mostly managed to stick to the tone of the book. Mostly.

Cons: 1. The unneeded sexual references. While not particularly gratuitous -- except for that rather un-Austen-like scene with Isabella and Frederick at the end -- I found them more distracting than anything.

2. The cut of the dialogue. The best parts were the dialogue; the best part of ANY Jane Austen book is often the dialogue. Why cut a good thing? I was totally looking forward to some Henryesque sarcastic monologues.

3. Northanger Abbey. It was SUPPOSED to be modern and pleasant in contrast to Catherine's suppositions. So when I saw dark, creepy interiors, it fell flat for me.

4. The characterization of General Tilney. While he is an unpleasant, greedy man, he was not evil; he accepted Henry and Catherine in the end for goodness' sake. Instead, they made him a one-dimensional, metaphorical "vampire" and more a villain along the lines of what Catherine imagined instead of the "realistic" antagonist he was.

5. The compression of the ending. It moved too swiftly, and I found Henry's proposal a little odd and halting -- since Henry is older than Catherine, I would expect him to be more, I don't know exactly, suave? or maybe I'm being unrealistic. The kiss was awkward, but it sort of worked in its awkwardness.

In essence, certain flaws -- the after-sex scene with Isabella and Frederick, the characterization of General Tilney, the occasional unevenness of Henry's portrayal, the references to Byron, etc. -- occasionally teeter the movie slightly into the direction of the melodrama it ISN'T supposed to be, but mostly it succeeds. And heck, I enjoyed myself somewhat, though I suspect Jane probably rolled in her grave a couple of times.

After 20 years with the horrible 1987 version as the only adaptation of Northanger Abbey, many fans were eagerly anticipating the new 2007 version. I was a little nervous about Andrew Davies writing the script, given his tendency to sex things up, but the cast looked really good. And then I saw it… Suffice it to say- I was totally right! Most of the cast was really good, especially JJ Feild as Henry Tilney…but it was really sexed up. Most of this was in the form of Catherine's dreams, but there was something else too. One scene in particular was just plain wrong! Why, Andrew Davies, why? He seemed to interpret the story to be Catherine's sexual awakening. Sorry, I didn't see any of that in the book- it was a comedy! This version has funny moments too, but it's really all the sexed up scenes that bothered me. Davies seemed to have missed the point, but at least not as badly as the 1987 creators did.

I wouldn't call this adaptation terrible, or anything. It just wasn't as great as it could have been. It was filmed in Dublin, because I guess they were too cheap to actually go to Bath (yet somehow the 1987 version could afford it? And even Persuasion that was filmed at the same time?) I did like that we got a nice little introduction that was close to what was in the book. There was even an epilogue- but it was so short, blink and you'll miss it! I think what annoys me so much about this movie is not how "bad" it was, but how bad it was compared to how good it could have been! With such a great cast, it could have been really excellent. Instead it was a disappointment.

This, I had high hopes for, having recently read and enjoyed the novel all over again, and remembering that I had thought the first film of it pretty poor. The remake improves on it in two respects: the first Catherine looked rather amateurish and the one here is okay; and the camera-work in the earlier film looked rather amateurish and here it also is okay. In most other respects, especially the casting, this version is worse.

The most conspicuous failure is the treatment of the rattle, John Thorpe, the novel's funniest character. That he is a rattle, which Austen is at pains to point out, is the fact that makes him funny, and which leads him to the two acts that precipitate the crisis of the story. For some reason the film ignores this altogether. It diminishes him into Joe the fat boy, so that his act (now reduced from two to one) no longer proceeds from his character; in fact it makes no sense at all.

And in the novel, did Thorpe tell Catherine that The Monk was "hot stuff"? It sounds incongruous and I don't remember it. And did Captain Tilney seduce and abandon Isabella? I'd rather remembered that he led her on to please his own vanity and then left with his regiment.

Isabella, the film does somewhat better by than it does her brother, the Tilneys' father (who has turned into Rawdon Crawley), and most of the other characters; she's at least recognizable, but more randy than I remembered her, and in other respects watered down, with her monologues shorn to next to nothing, so that she's no longer funny. In fact nothing in the film is funny, although much in the book is; and whereas the book sparkles and delights--it's the one published novel of Austen's that retains some of the buoyancy of her juvenilia--the film has a puzzlingly grim edge and leaves a dour aftertaste. Surely more gaiety could have been carried over?

But I must say that in general I don't understand the principles behind this new set of Austen films. The running times are so brief that obviously much had to be cut, but did the characters have to be the first casualties? And why couldn't the denouements, so well judged in the novels, have been kept as they were? I would tremble for "Mansfield Park" (which we Yanks haven't seen yet), if not for the comfort of knowing that it can't have had worse done to it than it had previously; also, that it's got Rose Tyler for protection.

This was one of three Jane Austen adaptations produced by the British television station ITV in 2007, the others being "Mansfield Park" and "Persuasion". Together with Joe Wright's "Pride and Prejudice" from 2005, the Bollywood adaptation "Bride and Prejudice" and the biopic "Becoming Jane", these can be regarded as part of a second cycle of Austen films, the first having taken place in the middle and late nineties. I think the reason why ITV chose these three novels is that, cinematically speaking, they are less familiar than Austen's other works. I am not aware of any previous film of "Northanger Abbey" and, although versions of "Persuasion" and "Mansfield Park" were made during the first great Austen cycle, neither aroused as much interest as, say, the Emma Thompson/Kate Winslet "Sense and Sensibility" or the Gwyneth Paltrow "Emma".

Austen's heroines can be divided into two categories. On the one hand there are lively, high-spirited ones like Elizabeth Bennett, Emma Woodhouse or Marianne Dashwood; on the other there are quieter, more demure ones like Fanny Price, Anne Elliot or Marianne's sister Elinor. The makers of "Northanger Abbey" were fortunate in that the novel's heroine, Catherine Morland, falls firmly into the first category, as Austen's quieter heroines can be difficult to bring to life on the screen. Only Emma Thompson has really succeeded in this, largely by making Elinor considerably older than she is in the novel. The two versions of "Mansfield Park" both try transfer Fanny into the outgoing, extrovert category, but both versions were heavily criticised by purist Janeites.

One of Austen's aims in writing the novel was to satirise the Romantic movement in literature, particularly the vogue for "Gothic" novels by the likes of Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis. (This vogue had gripped England in the 1790s, when Austen's novel was originally written, and persisted into the 1810s, when it was finally published). Unlike most of the other stately homes which feature in Austen's works, Northanger Abbey, the house which gives its name to the book, is not a Classical mansion but a rambling Gothic castle. When the naïve teenage heroine Catherine is invited to stay at the Abbey, the home of her friends the Tilney family, her over-fertile imagination leads her to believe that she is living in a Gothic romance and that her stern, forbidding host, General Tilney, is guilty of the murder of his wife, who died suddenly several years earlier.

This satire on the Gothic was only part of Austen's wider theme, the difference between reality and illusion. The novel tells the story of Catherine's coming-of-age, of how she learns not only the difference between fiction and real life but also the difference between what people seem and what they really are. Several people whom Catherine believes she can trust turn out to be thoroughly untrustworthy. Her close friend Isabella, who shares and encourages her taste for Gothic fiction, turns out to be shallow and fickle. Isabella's brother John is an unreliable braggart and gossip. Captain Frederick Tilney, the General's elder son, appears to be a gallant army officer, but turns out to be a heartless seducer. Even the General himself, although he may not be a murderer, turns out to be arrogant, snobbish and thoroughly unpleasant. On the other hand, some of Catherine's friends prove their true worth, such as the General's daughter Eleanor and his younger clergyman son Henry, who eventually wins Catherine's heart.

In my view, "Northanger Abbey" is the strongest of the three ITV Austen adaptations. "Persuasion" was just dull, and its heroine Sally Hawkins duller still. As for "Mansfield Park", I personally (unlike many) liked Billie Piper's interpretation of the role of Fanny, but I felt that she received little support from the other cast members, apart from Hayley Attwell's Mary Crawford. In "Northanger Abbey", however, although there are no well-known names among the cast, the acting is all of a high standard. Felicity Jones made a fresh and delightful heroine and she received good support from, among others, J J Feild as Henry, Carey Mulligan as Isabella and Liam Cunningham as the autocratic General.

I have in the past been critical of some of Andrew Davies' adaptations of literary works for the screen, such as the recent "Brideshead Revisited", but in this case he did a good job, producing an intelligent screenplay with a fine understanding of Austen's novel. The one thing I did not like was the "bathtub" scene, but then Davies likes to get a bit of sex into all his adaptations. 7/10

I was kinda disappointed with 'Mansfield Park', so I was definitely hoping for an improvement when I tuned into 'Northanger Abbey'.

I was instantly hooked. As a lover of romantic stories, I loved the cute relationship between Henry and Catherine. (The kiss at the end is v.sweet!).

Felicity Jones was great as Catherine Morland, and so was JJ Field as Henry Tilney. I think they had great chemistry, (and I love the bit where he strokes the mud off her face.) I would like to see more of them in the near future.

I found the fantasy sequences v. intriguing- it was like seeing right into Catherine's warped imagination.

so... 10/10.

This is an enjoyable 90 minutes, with good performances throughout (especially Felicity Jones and Carey Mulligan). But it still left me with regrets.

It is nearly always a mistake to second-guess Jane Austen. You should either do the novels straight or leave them alone. This Northanger Abbey is better than the 1986 BBC version, but still could not resist playing around with the book and so it loses some of its best features.

It is Austen's shortest book so fits more naturally into the 90 minute format than her other works, but it still feels rushed and desultory at times. It is also her most poorly constructed story and the Bath scenes fit uncomfortably with the scenes at Northanger. The screenplay by Andrew Davies addresses this weakness and manages to smooth over the transition, but it has its own shortcomings.

Northanger Abbey is often misrepresented as a parody of the Gothic novel and the 1986 version took that as its cue to give the whole production a Gothic feel. In truth, there is no parody in the book. Austen simply defends her approach to fiction by drawing ironic contrasts between the mundane events she is depicting and the delirious fancies of the popular novels of her time.

Davies, thank goodness, gets this. He relegates the Gothic trappings to Catherine's daydreams which he then uses to set up the plot twist where she imagines herself to be in the middle of an actual Gothic mystery. At this point, it is appropriate for the style to be heightened to echo Catherine's viewpoint. However, he also gives us Jane Austen's sardonic observations as a voice-over. This is probably a mistake, because the voice-over would have better been reserved for Catherine, so she can clarify just how she comes to believe that General Tilney murdered his wife. As it is, we learn of her suspicions, but see very little justification for them.

Although this section of the story could have been better handled, it is the Bath scenes that are least satisfactory. Rather than a Gothic parody, the book is really about a naive young girl's introduction to society and her rapid disillusionment. This is the best-plotted part of the book and should probably have been presented pretty much as written.

We need to see more of the development of Catherine's relationship with Arabella and her growing apprehensions about her new friend. We need to see more of how Arabella and her brother impose on her pliant good nature for their own selfish ends. We also need to see more of John Thorpe's bone-headed self-absorption. He is one of the best and funniest creations in the book but we get very little of his character and none of the humour. Basically (as another reviewer has already said) we need more of Austen's dialogue. It is Tilney's drollery, Arabella's self-contradictions and John Thorpe's blustering and bragging that make the characters live.

Simple plot points are not particularly well handled. General Tiney's nature and ambitions need to unfold gradually rather than be made transparent from his first appearance. Similarly, we need to see how Henry Tilney inadvertently cues Catherine's fancies by his own parody of the Gothic style.

While I welcome this movie as the first half-way satisfactory version of Austen's least-dramatised book, I still regret that it doesn't quite capture the novel. At the end I was saying to myself: "Well, you got through the plot OK, but you didn't really tell the story."

Frustrating!

PS.

Memo to producers: You cannot tell a Jane Austen story in less than two hours (three is nearly always better), so there is no point in trying.

Catherine Morland, the heroine of Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey", has a lot in common with the young women at the center of the author's literary work. This novel is, perhaps, not as well known as the others she wrote. But in a way, it is a treasure, nevertheless. The abridged version of the series seen on England's ITV channel, makes perfect sense, although many Austen purist might feel it is not so. Any viewer not familiar with the novel, will probably be delighted in what comes in this sunny adaptation.

Young Catherine Morland is asked by her wealthy neighbors, the Allens, to accompany them to Bath, which at the time was the place to be for the English society of that time. Bath was a great place to be for young people ready to go into the kind of social life that was so prevalent in the city. The refinement of Bath attracted all kinds of marriageable candidates.

Catherine was not a sophisticated girl at the time. She had a vivid imagination, made more so, after reading the Gothic literature of the time. It only took a meeting with the handsome clergyman, Henry Tilney, for her to fall in love with him. Catherine also attracts the attention of a social climber, Isabella Thorpe and her brother John. Isabella, who was being courted by Catherine's brother, catch the attention of Henry's father, Captain Tilney, a fastidious man, telling how Catherine stands to inherit the Allen fortune, something that is music to his ears because of his great ambition to marry his children well. Catherine is set as a target for his schemes.

This production was directed by Jon Jones, as adapted from the original novel by Andrew Davies. The Austen's themes about life among the rich classes and the clash between good and evil, are well in place in this handsomely photographed film. Ciaran Tanham gets the essence of what it must have been like in Bath and in the Abbey, as well as in the country where the action takes place.

Felicity Jones does a splendid job in her portrayal of Catherine. She is an interesting actress that shows intelligence in all her appearances. J.J. Feild, who plays Henry, is also good in the way he perceived his character. The excellent Carey Mulligan makes an impression with her Isabella. Liam Cunningham is marvelous as Capt. Tilney. The large supporting cast does well for Mr. Jones.

Recommended for people that might have wanted to know a little bit more about Jane Austen, but had not been exposed to her books.