Jane Austen’s books are primarily romances between persons of a genteel class, and the movies that are made from the books contain emotional drama. But “Mansfield Park” takes us on a different journey, as we touch on slave trading in England during Victorian times.
Fanny Price is a poor girl who has many brothers and sisters. Her mother, desperate for a way to feed all of her children, sends Fanny to live with a relation, who is the housekeeper at a grand house called Mansfield Park. The master of Mansfield, Sir Bertram, agrees to let Fanny live in the main house, but she’s never treated as more than an extra. Her only friend is Edmond (Jonny Lee Miller) son of the house, who seeks her out and encourages her to confide in him.
As Fanny (Francis O’Connor) grows up, she overshadows the girls of the family in brains, writing stories and long letters home. Because she’s so clever, the other girls hate her, but she attracts the attention of a neighboring young man, by the name of Henry Crawford (Alessandro Nivola). He’s situated well and wants to marry Fanny, but she can’t quite bring herself to fall in love with him.
This infuriates Sir Bertram, who believes he’s taken care of Fanny long enough and wants her to show her appreciation by making a good match. When she still refuses, he throws her out, and she returns to the home of her youth. Nothing there has changed, except there are even more children. Every meal must be scraped out of the dirt, there is no extra money for anything, and Fanny comes face to face with the life she has been living and the life she must now live. When Henry comes to propose again, she accepts, but deep in her heart, she knows she can’t go through with it. He’s not trustworthy, and every instinct tells her to stay away from him. She breaks the engagement, only to be blamed when he ends up in the arms of another woman.
Meanwhile, the oldest Bertram son, Tom (James Purefoy) has fallen ill. Sir Bertram begs Fanny to return and nurse his son back to health, which she does, but she stumbles upon a secret. Tom has been working with his father in the slavery business and asking his father for years to give it up, and Fanny finds Tom’s journal full of sketches of the cruelty the masters inflict on the slaves. If children are watching this with you, you’ll want to blip over this part, starting when she picks up the book. Sickened by what she has discovered, Fanny finally understands some of the elements in the relationship Tom had with his father.
In the end, Fanny finds true love, most satisfactorily, might I add. I will always love “Pride and Prejudice” the best, closely followed by “Sense and Sensibility,” but “Mansfield Park comes in third in my Austen appreciation lineup.
This movie is rated PG-13 for the content mentioned above, as well as some veiled drug use. It may be one you choose not to watch with children, but if you do, you can easily blip over the unfortunate parts.
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