The conventional wisdom around the most recent cinematic take on Jane Austen’s Persuasion (2022) hardened almost immediately. Too Fleabag-y, too Bridgerton-y, and not Austen-y or Persuasion-y enough to tempt me was the consensus. I focus here mainly on U.S. based publications and reactions, but British GQ sums up takes from Britain’s papers. It’s worth slowing down to examine these takes in some detail to get a sense of the discomfort with this particular modernization of an Austen novel. And it’s worth thinking through why not just this modernization but modernization full stop is so fraught when it comes to the figure of Austen and the particularities of her novels. Doing…
