... okay there probably aren't (m)any corsets in Mansfield Park as it's a period drama so it fits for the title. This version I saw was the film one from about ten years ago and it's a very strange adaptation. In this case, despite being a huge fan of Jane Austen and having criticised films in the past for digressing from the source material, if anything this one benefits from doing so. The adaptation is very ambitious, as ITV's version of the story starring Billie Piper showed last year Fanny Price is actually quite a boring character. To counter this writer/director Patricia Rozema chose to basically add characteristics of Jane Austen (and moments of her life) to Fanny and somehow, strangely, it just about works.
This is because in a film like Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice they adapted the book sometimes word for word but had Keira Knightley act it differently (sometimes the absolute opposite) to the way described in the book. Now that isn't a problem in itself but in this case it ensured she was "acting well" in individual scenes but importantly presented characterisation problems throughout the internal narrative of the film and upset the arc of the story so that's why it's a flaw. Here while it is complete butchery for the purist, it does make for a more interesting character going through what is basically the same story (although it's chopped and changed around). Frances O'Connor is excellent in the lead and there are some nice supporting turns (especially Alessandro Nivola in the best performance I've seen him give) even if none of them get up to the quality of Hayley Atwell in the ITV version. If you like Jane Austen it's very worth seeing, if only to see whether you think the take on it is outrageous or inspired. Otherwise it's a good little period drama and if that's your thing then you can do a lot worse.
Stardust started its premiere run on sky last week and I caught it because I'd only heard good things about it when it was released and I'd considered seeing it in the cinema. It's a family fantasy adventure about a guy in a village in England who crosses the wall into another world to retrieve a fallen star to prove his love to local tease Sienna Miller (useless performance but she had nothing to work with). Turns out said star is actually Claire Danes and then shenanigans break loose with a combination of evil witch Michelle Pfeiffer (having lots of fun with it) and greedy prince Mark Strong both after the star. It's cute, clever, very fun and the show is absolutely stolen by Robert De Niro as the closeted camp pirate captain in a hilarious turn. The special effects are a bit dodgy at times, it does get a bit convoluted towards the end and there's a series of scenes of Strong's dead brothers' ghosts watching on which feels like something out of a first draft that should have been cut as it adds little or nothing to the story or film. So a very watchable, fun effort that is entertaining, if not excellent.
Finally I saw The Collector on sky, which I was very pleased about because I've wanted to see it for years and it's not available via online rental. The opening 20 minutes of the film see Terrence Stamp coming across a house in the country, stalking Samantha Eggar and then kidnapping her and locking her away in the (as comfortably furnished as possible) cellars of the house. William Wyler's direction of this passage recalls Vertigo in a very good way as it is an extremely visual opening with only patches of a voiceover preceeding the stalking giving you any information. When we get into the main body of the film it does have a rather stagey quality to it, probably highlighted more by the opening but necessary given the fact it's just these two people talking in confined spaces.
The end must have been very controversial at the time, it was shocking even now because I thought that kind of thing didn't happen in English language films until at least the 70s. There is some very interesting characterisation in the writing vis-a-vis Stamp's motivation and both performances are first rate (although it's rather disappointing that after them both winning Cannes Samantha was the only one to get awards attention in America). However her repeated attempts to escape do get repetetive and the end brings up an interesting idea or two but they're more afterthoughts than the main point, so I don't think it's the best way they could have gone about it. Interesting, but austere and a tad overdone.