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Persuasion (2022 film)

Persuasion is a 2022 American historical romantic film based on Jane Austen's 1817 novel of the same name. It was directed by Carrie Cracknell from a screenplay by Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow. The film stars Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Mia McKenna-Bruce, Richard E. Grant, and Henry Golding.

Persuasion was released to theaters in the United States on July 8, 2022, a week before its streaming release on July 15, 2022, by Netflix. The film received generally negative reviews criticizing the film's modernization of the source material and the main protagonist Anne Elliott (Dakota Johnson) breaking the fourth wall by interacting with the audience.

Plot

The story begins seven years after the broken engagement of Anne Elliot to Frederick Wentworth: having just turned 19 years old, Anne fell in love and had accepted a proposal of marriage from Wentworth, then a young and undistinguished naval officer. Wentworth was considered clever, confident and ambitious, but his low social status and lack of wealth made Anne's friends and family view him as an unsuitable partner. Anne's father, Sir Walter Elliot, and her older sister, Elizabeth, maintained that Wentworth was no match for a woman of Kellynch Hall, the family estate. Furthermore, Lady Russell, a distant relative whom Anne considers to be a second mother to her after her own died, also saw the relationship as imprudent for one so young and persuaded Anne to break off the engagement. Sir Walter, Elizabeth, and Lady Russell are the only family members who knew about the short engagement, as Anne's younger sister Mary was away at school. Admiral Croft and his wife arrive in Bath with the news that Louisa is engaged to Captain Benwick. Wentworth travels to Bath, where his jealousy is piqued by seeing William trying to court Anne. Captain Wentworth and Anne renew their acquaintance. Anne visits Mrs Smith, an old school friend, who is now a widow living in Bath under strained circumstances. From her, Anne discovers that beneath William's charming veneer, he is a cold, calculating opportunist who led Mrs Smith's late husband into debt. As executor to her husband's will, William has done nothing to improve Mrs Smith's situation. Although Mrs Smith believes that William is genuinely attracted to Anne, she feels that his primary aim is to prevent Mrs Clay from marrying Sir Walter, as a new marriage might mean a son for Sir Walter, displacing William as heir to Kellynch Hall.

The Musgroves visit Bath to purchase wedding clothes for Louisa and Henrietta, both soon to marry. Captains Wentworth and Harville encounter them and Anne at the Musgroves' hotel in Bath, where Wentworth overhears Anne and Harville discussing the relative faithfulness of men and women in love. Deeply moved by what Anne says about women not giving up their feelings of love even when all hope is lost, Wentworth writes her a note declaring his feelings for her. Outside the hotel, Anne and Wentworth reconcile, affirm their love for each other, and renew their engagement. Lady Russell admits she was wrong about Wentworth and befriends the new couple. William leaves Bath; Mrs Clay soon follows him and becomes his mistress, making it more likely that he will inherit Kellynch Hall. Once Anne and Wentworth have married, Wentworth helps Mrs Smith recover the remaining assets that William had kept from her. Anne settles into her new life as the wife of a Navy captain.

Cast

Production

In April 2021, it was announced Dakota Johnson had joined the cast of the film, with Carrie Cracknell directing from a screenplay by Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow, based on the novel of the same name by Jane Austen, with Netflix set to distribute. In May 2021, Henry Golding, Cosmo Jarvis, Suki Waterhouse, Richard E. Grant, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ben Bailey Smith, Izuka Hoyle, Mia McKenna-Bruce, and Nia Towle joined the cast of the film. In June 2021, Edward Bluemel, Lydia Rose Bewley, and Yolanda Kettle joined the cast of the film.

Principal photography began in May 2021.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 31% of 129 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Despite Dakota Johnson's best efforts, the chaotically anachronistic Persuasion fails to convince as a worthwhile Austen adaptation." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 42 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews.

Variety's Peter Debruge found Carrie Cracknell to have "gone and done a strange thing with the book", by trying to "modernize it, borrowing heavily from Fleabag with its fourth-wall-breaking gimmicks", while "casting a free-spirited, fully liberated American star, Dakota Johnson, as Anne — all of which strips the novel of its core tension." Christy Lemire from the Roger Ebert website found Dakota Johnson offering in the film "a taste of her under-appreciated comic timing", though she claims "it's impossible to care about whether Anne ends up with Frederick Wentworth because, as played by Cosmo Jarvis, he is so stiff and uncharismatic." The Guardian's Stuart Heritage wrote that the "attempt to modernize the classic novel has led to a disaster of anachronistic dialogue and annoyingly wry glances at the camera," while Vox critic Constance Grady found the film an "absolute disaster." The Spectator went so far as to proclaim in its review that "everyone involved should be in prison."