It is a truth universally acknowledged that a new Jane Austen adaptation will divide critics and fans alike.

Years ago, I went to an event with Deborah Moggach, screenplay writer for the 2005 Pride & Prejudice that really changed my view of the process of adaptation. I’ve always loved the film but there were (and are – it comes up in my book club more than you would think after all these years!) so many complaints about the film compared to the beloved 1995 BBC mini-series but Moggach pointed out she was making a feature film, so she had time constraints. Because of that, she chose to make the film the story of Elizabeth. It meant that many of the other character plots in the novel (and that appear in the mini-series) had to be left out, but viewed within that frame its hard to say she wrote a bad script.

Even with this in mind there are still plenty of bad adaptations, but the truth is most of those failings have less to do with the source material and more to do with other weaknesses. Case and point, the new Persuasion. As a lover of the Jane Austen novel, I was certainly frustrated at the lack of certain characters (Major Allen and his wife were woefully underused) and some character choices (why give Anne a drinking problem?) but most of my complaints have more to do with the fact it was created by a director and screenwriter who had zero trust in their audience. Plenty of reviewers took issue with the fact Anne broke the fourth wall Fleabag style but that wouldn’t have bothered me if it had been used as a way for the audience and Anne, our introverted main character, to connect. What bothered me was the fact Anne would tell us something directly and then repeat most of the conversation to other characters in dialogue! All I knew by the end of the film was the director and writers clearly think audiences are idiots and need to be told everything, probably twice. (A friend of a friend who has never read Austen said the film was both confusing and boring without knowledge of the original text so its not just Austen fans who were dissatisfied.)

The adaptions that are successful, in my opinion, find the spirit of the story and the characters and translate them into a new medium – both for audiences returning to a beloved tale and for those who have never read the course material. For example, there is a very quiet scene in the Ang Lee/Emma Thompson Sense & Sensibility where, after her sisters and mother have locked themselves in their respective rooms to cry, we watch Elinor simply sit down on the staircase in the hallway and drink the cup of tea she brought for Marianne… no one felt the need to have Elinor turn to the camera and go “my family is exhausting! I think I just need a minute to myself.”

Or how about the 2005 Pride & Prejudice where the director trusts us enough to know Darcy and Elizabeth are not *actually* the only people in the room while they dance, they just feel that way in the moment?

Good filmmakers can make changes and still capture key aspects of the text. The 2020 Emma, which was hardly a word-perfect adaptation, managed to bring the tone of Austen’s humor to the screen perfectly. Whether or not the audience had read the book, that adaptation trusted the audience to understand the subtle humor of a social gathering where the main point of conversation is the weather.

Now something often does have to be left behind – a friend who loves the novel was disappointed that the more serious character growth was left to the side in favor of the humor. However, my counterargument was most adaptations leave Austen’s humor to the side which is why so many first-time readers are taken aback by how funny her books are, so I liked that it got first place in this adaption. (It’s fine – we’re still friends in spite of this adaptation debate!)

In spite of all of this back and forth and the many issues with the new Persuasion, in the end I believe anything that keeps Austen in the modern cultural sphere does more good than harm in the long run.

And the next time you get into a heated debate about the pros and cons of a new adaptation just remember – Jane Austen did not have anything resembling the Colin Firth lake scene in the original Pride & Prejudice and yet no one has ever complained about that little dose of artistic license…