This Jane Austen adaptation has sex appeal and pop culture creed - but beware
When Netflix announced its adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, fans of the novel were “half in pain, half hope”. While there are a large number of Austen remakes, very few are wholeheartedly embraced as novel equivalents, and even fewer are not based on Pride and Prejudice. The main difficulty comes from the fans themselves: as with many established fandoms, the constant hunger for new material is paired with extremely high standards and expectations. Directed by eminent theater director Carrie Cracknell and starring Dakota Johnson, Netflix’s Persuasion tells the story of 27-year-old ‘spider’ Anne Elliot, a woman with “claims of birth, beauty and mind”, as she reconnects with Captain Wentworth (Cosmos Jarvis). ), the suitor he had persuaded to turn down eight years earlier because he was a penniless sailor. Persuasion is arguably Austen’s most mature work. First published in 1817, it was the last novel he wrote and was completed while he was dying. Instead of a romantic comedy a