I studied Persuasion at university. I think. I have plenty of time to wonder if I'm thinking of Persuasion or Mansfield Park, as the first ten or twenty minutes of this film is of Anne scurrying around her house as it is packed up, unconvincingly marking things on an inventory. Making an inventory would be a lot easier were it done before everything was in boxes and being covered up, but whatever. As I reach the conclusion that I studied both Persuasion AND Mansfield Park, hence my confusion, Anne's buddy Lady Russell shows up to tell us that Anne's dad and sister, Sir Walter and Elizabeth, are heinous bastards who are so extravagant they must let the house, Kellynch, to pay for their debts. Scandalous! Anne wants to stick around but daddy dearest wants to move to Bath. Shocking! Turns out Sir Walter is, in fact, Giles from Buffy. Hi, Giles! Still haven't forgiven you for bailing out and leaving me with that show, by the way! Anyway, Giles is taking an extreme interest in the vicar's daughter, Mrs Clay. Suspicious looks between Anne and Lady Russell. Judgemental bitches. Er, I mean, what charming ladies.
Mrs Clay's dad announces an Admiral will rent Kellynch. Turns out Giles wants a "gentleman" (as do I, Giles, as do I), and hates the Navy on account of being a snob. Said Admiral will be Admiral Croft. Anne throws a patented Jane Austen freakout and glides away from the company. Lady Russell follows. Admiral Croft is the brother-in-law of Cpt Frederick Wentworth, who Anne wanted to marry eight years ago, but Lady Russell told her not to on account of him being poor and in the Navy (seriously, this is the Napoleonic Wars! You people have every reason to be kissing Naval asses!), and now Anne knows he's rich and assumes he's married to someone else and God what a boring scene. Way to explain the plot, people. Also, if Anne's following his career in the newspapers so closely and knows he's rich now, wouldn't she also know if he were married? Excuse me while I get a cup of tea. Oh before I go, Anne reveals she's 27.
Blah blah blah, Giles is taking Mrs Clay to Bath with Elizabeth, Anne is going to stay with her married sister, Mary. Yawn. Is this EVER going to take off? So! Much! Talking! Where's the dancing? Anne has a little weep over her loveletters. I have a little weep because I don't have any to weep over. Opening Hotmail just isn't the same.
Okay, this is actually a cute scene. Anne is writing her diary, going on in a self-sacrificing manner about how she knows it's too late etc etc "but to be reminded of it by his presence here would, I am certain, be more than my spirits could bear". She suddenly thinks of him bringing his wife and children here and stares down the barrel of the camera in horror. Anne, I so know how you feel. Admiral Croft and his wifey show up, and miss Anne by about an inch. Turns out they know about the engagement but not that it was to Anne. Duhduhduh.
Mary is a hypochondriac. Her husband, Charles, is sweet bu dim. Her sisters-in-law, Henrietta and Louisa Musgrove, are sweet but hyperactive. This is all you need to know. And also? Fred is coming to tea tomorrow! Anne's "shiiiiiit!" face warms me even more to her.
However, Mary's son falls out of a tree so dear, stupid Anne stays home to look after him, denying her - AND US - sight of him. Anne, I had begun to like you. Why must you try me? Next morning, the girls are yakking about the party, and how "even Anne" is invited to Kellynch for dinner, when who should show up but old Fred? He's come to go shooting with Charles. And - good God. Excuse me, I think my retinas are permanently damaged by the dazzling sight of Rupert Penry-Jones in full Regency get-out. I think I forgot to breathe. He's CGI, right? Anyway, Anne's jaw drops and no damn wonder. Christ. Anyway, he spots Anne and...sorry, what? Oh, well he looks kind of, dunno really . Does it matter? He half-smiles at Mary and I get spots in front of my eyes. Then he leaves. Anne has another cry because he hasn't forgiven her. She goes on about feelings, but my feelings are a little less honourable than hers.
Dinner, and Fred smolders away as everyone keeps trying to introduce them, and he says nothing. He's so tall. Yum! Mrs Croft yaks about Fred's friend Cpt Harville, who is at Lyme with Cpt Benwick. "I hope," says my friend Pickles at this point, "I am not going to have to remember all of this?" Anyway, Cpt Benwick's fiancee, Harville's sister, has died. Rupert Penry-Jones deploys his best "Witness as I make this situation entirely ABOUT ME!" face, which serves him so finely as he fights global terrorism on "Spooks". Benwick had to wait to marry while he made his fortune, but now it's "too late". Er, yes. Fred announces he's resolved to settle down, while Anne sits across from him. You evil, magnificent bastard, with your amazingly finely chiselled jaw! "A little beauty, a few smiles and a compliment to the Navy and I shall be lost!" Is that a promise? I fucking love the Navy. Long live it! Come here! Louisa is thinking that too, by the way. He says seriously he values "firmness of mind" above all else. We see him as he basically assassinates Anne's character from the side, from her point of view, and might I add Rupert has spectacular eyelashes. Anne sinks into her seat. I am surprised that having been bored all this time, I am actually feeling genuinely sorry for them both.
The requisite piano-playing scene. Fred watches Anne from afar, and the expression on his face means my heart actually skips a beat. As the camera cuts to Anne looking up, he is gone. Is he Batman? Anyway, Anne plays for the party and they have the feeblest dance I have EVER seen. They prance like startled meerkats. Or maybe there's just too much of Rupert Penry-Jones to dance in a dignified fashion. Whatever.
Next day, Mary tells Anne that Fred told Louisa - or something - that Anne was so changed he wouldn't have known her. Charles is all, he meant it nicer than that. Anne looks unconvinced. The actress playing Mary is very good, but the character is so boring I really can't be bothered with her. Mary and Charles bicker over whether he's going to marry Henrietta or Louisa. Anne, unsurprisingly, doesn't have an opinion. At this point, Fred and the girls show up and they all mission it off to Henrietta's intended's home. Fred flirts quite outrageously with Louisa, and my heart breaks a little for Anne. Louisa is prettier, younger, energetic and you know Anne sees all that, and doesn't blame either of them but still it hurts. Anne takes a tumble off a log, and Fred grabs her from a very odd camera angle. He wanders off, and Charles very sweetly offers to stay with her. I kind of love Charles. She tells him to go on ahead.
Meanwhile, Louisa manages to get Fred alone, and I can only applaud the girl for not launching herself upon him. Instead, she reveals that they all wish Charles had married Anne, not Mary. As does Charles, I don't doubt. Fred has the best boots on here, incidentally. Mary has "too much of the Elliott pride". Hilariously, you see Fred go from taken aback, to assuming a "yeah...see what you mean" expression. Anyway, when Louisa says Anne refused Charles, he rolls his eyes in a melodramatic fashion. Louisa helpfully says Lady Russell persuaded Anne to refuse him, and says she's firm-minded etc etc. Anne, hid behind a tree, looks sad. As well she might. Charles AND Fred? Oh, ANNE.
Admiral Croft turns up with a carriage, and offers Anne a lift home. Anne says it would be too much trouble, and Fred grabs her arm, positively drags her to the carriage and hoiks her up into it like she was five. He would be one of those annoying men that pull you around Homebase even when you are capable of finding the wallpaper by yourself, I think.
More journal writing. Anyway, they are all to go to Lyme to meet Benwick and Harville. Anne tries to get out of it, but no cigar. There's a gratuitous, lingering shot of Fred galloping on big black horse. Oh, yum yum yum.
They turn up on the beach, where Fred embraces Harville and Benwick in manhugs. Harville, has a walking stick and looks pale. When Fred introduces the merry band, he finishes with ..."Miss Elliott". "Miss Anne Elliott?" enquires Harville, with the faintest cheeky smile. Fred gives him a perfect "I am going to KILL YOU" look. I worship Harville, even if it does feel sometimes like he's in an entirely different film. Anyway, over dinner, Benwick all but renders his garments over his lost love. He likes morbid poetry. Anne tolerates his misery relatively well. Of course.
Next day, Harville and Anne are wandering along the Cobb, looking extremely cold and wet. I wouldn't have liked to do the Risk Assessment for this shoot. They discuss Benwick. "Time is a great healer," says Anne, "or so I'm told." A mysterious figure who I happen to know is Mr Elliott because I've seen it before, motors along the top and I really can only think this is either CGI water or everyone signed liability waivers as the cast clamber around on slippery rocks halfway out in the ocean. Fred gives Mr Elliott a "fuck off" look. What a fascinating scene that didn't need to be in this film at all.
William Elliott turns out to be staying at their hotel, and Mary gets in a flap. Will is going to inherit.
Back on the Cobb, in even more treacherous circumstances that I can't bear to watch. Louisa proves my point by crashing to the ground. Fred and Anne to the rescue! Poor old Louisa. Fred tells Charles that Anne should stay in Lyme as she's so fab with the ill and the wretched. Mary throws a fit, so Anne has to get into a carriage with Fred to go back to Louisa's parents. Poor love. Fred relies on Anne's advice. I think we're meant to see the love in this, but really I see someone who needs a bit of common sense. He's smokin' hot but he really is the kind of man who wouldn't be able to programme the VCR. This is probably the reason he's sad when Anne says she's heading to Bath to see her dad. "How will I record Dancing on Ice?" he wonders. Rupert really looks fantastic in a flowing black cape.
So...Bath. Giles and Elizabeth and Mrs Clay are still snobby and boring but wear more interesting clothes. Giles is really overacting shockingly. Anyway, Will has reconciled with Giles, and they all but say Elizabeth is going to marry him. Elizabeth says, quite hilariously, that Mrs Elliott is "dead...quite dead." In walks Will. Tobias Menzies is a marvellous actor and all, but I still think of him as the junkie son that caused so much trouble for Max on Casualty. Sorry, Tobias.
Best scene in the film. Back in Lyme, Fred and Harville are talking about how well Louisa is doing. "She'll make a fine wife," says Harville, randomly. He has a tiny grin on his face all the way through. Fred is all, you think I have intentions for Louisa? Harville establishes that Fred doesn't care for her at all in that way - which, honestly, is a little mean considering how he's behaved towards her. Anyway, Harville then says how disappointed the Musgroves will be as "they talk of little else". Harville, stop yanking his chain. He's so loving this. "Dear God, Harry," gasps poor delusional Fred, "have I been so unguarded, so thoughtless?" Harville, brilliantly, is like, yup: "It would appear that you have." Fred, eyes boggling with horror, realises that he is "bound to her." Harville: "Indeed." I would love to have Harville as my friend in my hour of need. Fred all but howls: WHAT CAN I DO? And Harville suggest running away and hoping Louisa forgets about it, essentially. I love Harville, I wish we had more of him. Anyway, Fred wanders off, and...is that emotion on his face? Good God, I think it is. Rupert makes up for having to be stony-faced throughout by turning his "despair" dial up to 10. I have to say, the weather they are having in Lyme is awful. That wind must have been horrendous to film in. I can't even imagine how distraught the sound recordist was. Welcome to ADR Hell. Population: Rupert Penry-Jones and Joseph Mawle.
Meanwhile, Anne thinks Fred is engaged to Louisa (as does Louisa, natch), and Mr Elliott puts the moves on her. Anne reckons that Will is only interested because he's worried Giles is going to have a son with Mrs Clay and NONE OF THIS MATTERS because I know what happens at the end. There's lots of boring stuff that reveals Anne and Will aren't' kindred spirits. Which we all knew anyway. A letter from Charles says they're all coming for a wedding dress fitting for Louisa. Anne cries, and looks down the camera again. I kind of wish she'd stop doing that, every time she does I mentally hear: "Cut! Re-set!"
Anne turns down visiting some viscountess to go to her old schoolfriend. Anne is a saint. Let's not worry too much about it. She and her dad have a huge fight. We. Get. It. Where's His Hotness gone?
He's right here. On the Cobb. The waves are literally crashing over it now, and they MUST be CGI, because they crash behind him and Harville, and in front of them, but not ON them, so unless some AD is holding back the tide - and crazier things have been asked of ADs - something is afoot. Still, even if the waves are CGI, the spray isn't, and this is our gratuitous wet-hero shot of the evening so let's enjoy it. Both actors look really wet and cold. This shoot would have been so miserable. Louisa has gone home. Fred begins to wail about how he imagined himself indifferent to "her", and Lord what a mess, while Harville looks faintly amused. Harville and Fred must've been a scream on the same frigate together. Fred ploughs on with his self-flagellation. "She's perfection itself!" Harville, with a twinkle, notes that they are now talking of Anne Elliott ("who else?" asks Fred), and asks whether Fred got Benwick's letter, but on Fred goes picturing a visit to Louisa, and Harville's like, dude, the letter says she's marrying Benwick so snap out of it. Harville looks a little sad, because obviously it's his sister's grave Louisa's stamping on ("oooh yeah!" says Pickles), but even he can't maintain it as Fred positively beams. Thud. Harville invites Fred to Bath. They laugh and hug. There's more love there than between Fred and Anne, I'd say.
Lady Russell, persuasive as she is, is talking Anne into marrying Will by floating the idea of being Lady Elliott and owning Kellynch again. It nearly works. Anne is wearing a coat made of material not dissimilar to my grandmother's former curtains. I know Anne isn't supposed to be the prettiest of Austen heroines, but she deserves better than these costumes. Heavens.
Admiral Croft turns up in Bath, turns out Anne is wrong and Louisa is marrying Benwick and not Wentworth! I know, right? It's almost like we've been told this before. Well, we have. Anne's little face beams, and it's certainly nice to see the girl have some good news. It's going to all go to hell again before we're through here, of course, but I'm enjoying the happiness while I can. And just to top it all, Fred is in Bath!
Rupert running through the rain. Sometimes I feel like I'm watching a Gap advert or something. Anyway, damp Fred, resplendent in his necktie and looking just like a dream, comes across Anne in...a building? No idea. Doesn't matter. He's so beautiful. How does Sally Hawkins remember her lines when she's that close to him? He's so tall. Argh. Sorry. Anne somehow gets the conversation going about Louisa and Benwick and they remark on their unsuitability, but they're staring into each other's eyes and smiles and I swear to God, I am shivering he's so gorgeous. Is he REAL? He says that much as he likes Louisa, Miss Harville was superior and Benwick loved her so much: "a man cannot recover from such a passion. He will not. He does not." They are standing sooo close together and staring at each other, and I'm getting dizzy from looking at him on the TV screen so God knows what Sally Hawkins was going through. Anyway, in barges Mr Elliott, taking "dear Anne" away. Anne invites Fred to a concert. You do not see Fred's face, and he says not a word, but you can practically hear him screaming. Anne, for the first time, is vivacious. Oh, dear.
At the concert, Fred comes across the Elliotts, all of whom are staggered. Anne zooms off to meet him, but he is back to being restrained. He says his stay in Bath "depends". "I see," says Anne, but I think she's a big fat liar. He tries to get serious, but at the point Elizabeth shoots by him, nearly taking Rupert's attractive eye out with her hat. Anne and Will go to sit together, as Fred looks on. Admiral Croft says he believes Anne will marry Will, and Fred leaves. Anne, starting to lose all inhibitions, races after him as any red-blooded woman might. "There's nothing here worth me staying for," he says as Will appears. Ouch. He leaves. Will proposes. Anne goggles, but doesn't answer. It's quite boring. Sorry again, Tobias.
The next morning, Anne gets a letter from Fred saying he will call on her. Charles and Mary turn up, but Anne's all a tizz, naturally enough. Charles is adorable. They natter about the girls' marriage. Fred turns up and is accosted by them all at once. I'm almost as worked up as Anne by now. Anne, finally snapping, just shrieks "Captain!" and drags him off. Sensible woman.
He's not there to propose. Instead, Admiral Croft thinks she's engaged to Will and sent Fred to say she should take Kellynch back. He doesn't meet her eye, and his lower lip actually trembles. Oh, baby. Seriously though, Rupert Penry-Jones is impressively agonised here. I usually find him quite wooden in "Spooks", but he comes alive here. Anne says he's mistaken, and there's a tiny smile on his face. SMILE, BOTH OF YOU! They don't, for reasons I don't understand. Anne asks where the rumour came from, and Fred says "As to that..." as Mary crashes in. Was he going to say it was from him? Who knows? Anyway, Lady Russell interrupts, and Fred is a little bitchy about it. Fred leaves, and Anne looks as baffled as me. Where IS HE GOING? Anne races out after him, but is sidelined firstly by the Misses Musgroves, and secondly by her old schoolfriend who basically tells us Will is eeevil. Fred actually IS Batman, because she's about 3 seconds behind him but he's entirely vanished from the street. Anne is as little interested in Will's evilness or not as we are (he's courting Mrs Clay too, to stop her marrying Giles, because he's desperate to become Sir William), and she runs off to find Fred. Instead, she finds Harville, who has a letter from Fred, but Fred himself is off somewhere else. Harville is wearing a fantastic waistcoat that I quite envy. Anne, on the other hand, has a truly hideous velvet collar.
So. The letter. Fred basically declares his love "weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant." Like Yoda, he is. He offers himself to her, despite her "almost breaking his heart" - seriously, he's going to bring it up every argument, Anne, for your whole married life. "Tell me...tell me not that I too late," intones Rupert in the voiceover entirely too melodramatically for my taste. Anne's running this whole time to Admiral Croft, who says Fred's gone to call on her. Long, long, long shot of poor Sally Hawkins running in unsuitable shoes and a long dress on wet pavements. Anne then chooses the less time-honoured approach to her future husband by literally running into him - and Charles. She is completely out of breath and so sweet. Charles, alarmed, begins nattering on about shotguns and so on, as Anne practically hyperventilates. As you would, to be honest. Anne just stares at Fred, Charles leaves, Fred takes off his hat, and Anne says she's "minded to accept" his proposals, and thanks him. Oh, get to it, kids! "I am determined," says Anne, as though leaping into bed with this man is some sort of terrible fate awaiting her. Fred smiles, genuinely, probably for the first time in eight years and then they take about a minute of lips hovering before kissing. It's not a very romantic kiss.
More journal writing. More staring down the camera. Stop it!
Anyway. Some time later. Fred, looking amazing just by the way in a beautiful shirt, shows Anne her wedding present: Kellynch. How does that work? Isn't the whole point that Will doesn't need money, he wants the grandeur of being lord of the manor? Surely he wouldn't sell that grandeur to Fred? And surely Giles couldn't, even if he wanted to, because it's entailed? I don't get it. Unless they're just renting it, I guess. It doesn't matter. God, he's so tall. They both smile broadly and gorgeously, and laugh, and are so happy after two hours of unrelenting misery that I smile, even while pondering the legality of it. They have a supremely romantic kiss, and waltz on the front lawn. I am left in that Jane Austen reverie that wraps itself around you like a warm blanket after spending a couple of hours in her company. It's like a drug, except the effects aren't very longlived. But God, it's nice while it lasts. Oh and by the way: Rupert Penry-Jones, you are a beautiful human being.
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