My Controversial Favourite Austen Adaptations! 

The 2008 Sense and Sensibility miniseries is my favorite adaptation hands down. It's such a faithful and compelling adaptation. Glad to see Love & Friendship and Austenland make your list. I enjoyed both. I will definitely have to check out Metropolitan - thanks for the recommendation! Thanks for the content!

I loved the 2020 film of Emma:)

It is very difficult to disagree with You: Jennifer Ehle is a fantastic Elizabeth Bennet, really indeed, despite the fact, that she's american. Thank You, Beatrice, for this yet another new outpouring of illuminating and contagious expertise. In praise. Flavio 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

It's nice to hear you're a Whit Stillman and Metropolitan fan. I watch it as one of my Christmas movies every year (since it takes place over Christmas break). Audrey Rouget is my favorite neo-Austen film character! After watching Metropolitan, I have to watch Last Days of Disco, for Audrey's cameo, to be reassured that things turned out 🆗 for her! 😊 I enjoyed your rundown of adaptions.

Thank you for the recommendation of Metropolitan. I will keep an eye out for that film. I do like both the Persuasion with Amanda Root and the P&P with Jennifer Ehle -- they are my favourite adaptations of those novels. Oh, and good luck with your Ph.D. -- some people have T-shirts that say "Don't ask about my thesis!"

FIGHT!!! But first: welcome back! I feel like this video was a late Christmas present, I enjoyed it so much. Your top 5 is a great list, betokening excellent taste...except for Emmafullstop, for which I have a visceral dislike. It's not an absolute catastrophe like Netflix's Persuasion, but I do consider it a misfire, and think your own arguments count against it. First, as you note one of the elements that works so well in Clueless is that it gets the right balance in the character of Cher/Emma. Yes, she is superior, condescending, selfish and entitled, but she also has a kind, generous and caring side. Beneath the spoiled facade there is a goodness in Emma that is the basis for her development and explains why Knightley loves her. Emmafullstop - and I don't blame the actress, AT-J is usually excellent - is too cold and aloof. Emma is oblivious ("clueless") and naive about the effects of her meddling; Emmafullstop doesn't care. This is a huge problem for the movie, because it undermines her character arc and relationship with Knightley - it didn't work at all for me. Second, you nail why Austenland is such a clever, intertextually-aware movie. Austen's genius, the reason why her novels transcend time and culture, lies in the penetration of her insights into human relationships. The bonnets, dresses, dances etc. are just the surface wrapping around stories and characters that have universal appeal. As you say, Austenland parodies the LARPing elements of the superficial fandom extremely well, but cleverly juxtaposes that superficiality with the underlying relationship tropes (bonus that the romantic partner was played by the actor that had portrayed Henry Tilley in another adaptation - the movie is woefully under-appreciated). I mention all this because de Wilde's movie focuses too much on the visuals. I think by far the most common point of praise is that the movie is pretty, and it is. The design, lighting and visual composition have a striking aesthetic, but it's intrusive. It feels confected, arch, hyper-stylised and unnatural, like a deliberate, knowing pastiche. Sometimes it felt like a visual parody and there were too many moments where the director was winking at the audience - "See! Amn't I clever? I snuck in a Handmaid's Tale reference!" The intrusive visual style thus made me resent the degree to which key elements of the story were under-cooked, notably the necessary romantic foils, I.e. Frank Churchill- Jane Fairfax and Knightley- Harriet Smith. The overall effect for me was a "triumph" of style over substance; I think it plays to the worst elements of superficial Austenism (or is it Janeism?), and Iwonder if it contributed to the similarly shallow pastiche effect of the Bridgerton TV adaptation. I was delighted by the inclusion of Metropolitan in your list. I'm going to bowl you a googly on it, though, which is that I don't agree that Audrey Rouget is the Fanny Price character, or at least not the sole analogue for Fanny. I think Tom Townsend has elements of Fanny's character and is the primary protagonist. That is, I think of Tom as a gender-swapped Fanny [OK, sounds rude, but I'm running with it] in the adaptation, with elements of both Fanny and Edmund in his character. What clinches this for me is that he is presented as the "poor relation" thrust into a society where he's acutely conscious of his weaker social standing and lack of flair, and he is earnestly virtuous in a painfully awkward way. Tom's position as the outsider and virtuous observer of the group reminds me much more of Fanny than Edmund. Which is one reason why I find that scene where he quotes Trilling so funny - he IS the character that Trilling declared to be unlikeable. Apologies for the long comment. I'm going to blame you for publishing such a provocatively interesting video.

Hello Beatrice, glad to hear things are going well with you! I'm intrigued by your high placement of Stillman's Metropolitan. I'm also a fan of his, and watch his entire oeuvre once a year. I've liked Metropolitan best of all his films. I've been aware of him as an Austen admirer, but I've always experienced his films outside of the clear Austen influences. I think it's because of the way I initially saw the films when they came out. There hasn't been a standout Mansfield Park adaption, and Metropolitan does bring out the themes beautifully. As to my favorite Austen adaption, I thoroughly enjoy the Romola Garai Emma. And I take seriously your critique that Emma is not a likable young woman. But I have to admit, I'm completely charmed by Garai's performance. I like it so much I want Emma to be a nicer person. I'm guilty of immersing myself in this production, and my critical faculties suffer for it. Garai's Emma definitely charms me out of facing the reality of Austen's Emma, until I reread the novel, which I do every few years. I can't disagree on your other picks. I also love the 95 Persuasion. Have a great New Year!

I thought I'd watched about every adaptation there was. Apparently I missed some. Adding them to my watchlist, now! Thank you. Also, what do you think of Lost in Austen? I loved it. It's hilarious.

That is an interesting group of adaptions and Austen inspired works. I haven't seen any of those that create an outright Austen inspired world. I'll have to catch up with those. I've seen the two Whit Stillman films. Metropolitan is an excellent movie. The world he creates in that film is definitely Austen-esque. I guess my go to adaption is the 95 Pride and Prejudice. The fairly recent BBC adaptions from 2008 or 2009 were a decent effort, though not competition for the earlier standouts, they were light years ahead of the recent Persuasion travesty.

I really disliked the 2020 Emma and Emma is my favorite novel. Visually, it's so beautiful. It just felt rushed, shallow and I didn't feel anything watching it. I didn't care that Emma reformed. I really connected with Emma 2009 and it moved me so very much- so it's my favorite adaptation. I love P&P 1995 too - just watched an episode today. Thank you for the recommendation for Metropolitan. I'm reading Mansfield Park right now. I really loved Austenland too! It's so fun! I read Death Comes to Pemberley some years ago and it's on my list to watch soon now that it's available on PBS. I really did enjoy the 2008 Sense and Sensibility as well as the 1995 version. I do like the 1995 Persuasion and the 2007 version too. They each have emphases I enjoy (Netflix should have rated theirs NC-17 for horror. HA HA). Thank you for sharing your list! I love to hear which adaptations people enjoy. 👍🏻👍🏻

Absolutely agree with you on Emma 2020, its an amazing "modern" adaptation that understood the novel as well as Jane Austen's witty humour. Visually, it gorgeous, and, anyone who thinks the movie isn't that good should watch the picnic scene, that's like, maybe the best scene in the movie. Never heard of Metropolitan but the way you describe it it seems worth checking out. Avoided Love&Friendship until now as I feared it was a badly made wanna-be Austen movie, looking forward to watch it now :)