First of all: oh my god, you guys, the Serial podcast. I've listened to each episode twice by now, and the fact that there are only 3 out and none of them deal with what this Jay guy is all about is figuratively killing me. And the streaker!! Ok, I won't go any further. But if you're not listening to it, you should get in on the ground floor because every week is now full of delicious anticipation for a new episode.
On to my main topic: Jane Austen. I, like many, have been obsessed with all things Austen for a while now. In fact, I can divide my not-insubstantial book collection into three categories: 1) fairy tales and imaginative re-tellings of them; 2) Austen novels and their many spin-offs; and 3) everything else. I have shelves full of Austen adaptions both good and terrible, with plots ranging from Elizabeth and Darcy as crime solvers to Elizabeth and Darcy: graphically horny rabbits for each other. So recently I was indulging in one Austen obsession when I stumbled upon another, and it got me thinking about how many Austen adaptions I've managed to make a regular part of my entertainment diet. So here, ordered by my approximation of when I became exposed to them, is my list of favorite Austen-inspired works.
I'm going to be honest, I found out about this Emmy winning series while trawling through the fanfic boards of another Austen adaption. It's a YouTube series, which I had never watched before, because who has time for YouTube when I still haven't managed to watch the second season of OITNB? This, though, I binge-watched in ONE DAY. And there are 100 episodes. I was dubious after the first episode, but they auto-played and they're a scant 3 minutes, so by the third ep I was lost in the surprisingly well-crafted world of the modern-day Bennet sisters.
The story unfolds over a series of vlogs made by Lizzie Bennet, who, in this iteration, is a grad student living at home with her parents and two sisters, Jane and Lydia, all of whom are tormented by their old-fashioned, marriage-obsessed mother. Bingley is turned into Bing Lee, some sort of internet businessman who just moved into town and brought his snooty GOOP-style sister Caroline and the insufferable, moneyed hipster Darcy, who really prefers the vintage sound of a gramophone and apparently wears pork-pie hats and bow ties. Lizzie Bennet herself is a charming narrator, Jane is appropriately pretty and nice, and Lydia translates excellently into a modern, boy-crazy teenager. We're introduced to the other characters, at first, through re-enactments undertaken by Lizzie and her best friend and vlog editor, film student Charlotte Lu. We do, eventually, meet the other characters in the flesh, as the vlogs go where Lizzie goes, and Lizzie goes where Austen's original plot takes her, right up to Pemberley, here an internet empire with offices in San Francisco, and right into Darcy, who does not, it turns out, wear pork-pie hats all that often. He does like his bow ties, though.
I gather that as the series originally unfolded there was an interactive element to it, with all characters having real-life Twitter accounts that were updated to reflect where they were in all of this. There are also episodes thrown in where the characters answer real questions from fans. Other characters get their own vlogs, too, the most popular of which is Lydia's as she spends time away from the family and gets into trouble with that irascible George Wickham. Charlotte Lu gets her own vlog, briefly, as well as Georgiana in later episodes. So you get a sense of all of the characters as real people, since Lizzie's narration, as is pointed out in the series itself, limits our perception of events to Lizzie's own point of view and doesn't always reflect what may be actually occurring. You can order this series as a complete set on Amazon, which I've seriously considered even though it's free on YouTube, because sometimes a person isn't always attached to a WiFi connection.
Lost in Austen originally aired as a miniseries in the UK and is now available on DVD. The series heroine, Amanda Price, is a P&P obsessed 20-something who discovers Elizabeth Bennet in her bathroom getting handsy with her underthings, fresh from a portal linking her world to Amanda's modern-day London flat. You'll have to suspend disbelief as Amanda chooses to step through the door, leaving Elizabeth in 21st century London as Amanda emerges into the Bennet house to take Elizabeth's place in the story, clad in pleather leggings and a tunic top. Initially excited to find herself right at the beginning of the novel, her beloved tale quickly begins to fall apart as she realizes her presence is skewing things in ways she can't control.
This version turns a LOT of the Austen canon on it's head, which I gather upset a lot of viewers when it first aired, but for some reason I loved it. The characters are introduced exactly as you'd expect them to be and then deviate in ways that, to me, feel organic. Some of them even serve to satisfy issues readers might have with the original characters. Bingley, in this version, is forced to deal with the consequences of his weak-minded foolishness. Darcy, in turn, gets a very satisfying fist to the face for his presumptuous meddling. It's honestly the sexiest Bingley's ever been (also helped by the fact that Bingley here is played by Tom Mison, now of Sleepy Hollow and your dreams). Jane, too, gets the chance to exhibit some strength after finding little reward in the virtue of obedience when it lands her in miserable circumstances that benefit everyone but herself. The result is actually a more satisfying love story between Jane and Bingley, with both of them really having to jump some hurdles to end up together, as opposed to the tepid B-pairing they formed in Austen's original novel.
George Wickham, too, gets a refreshingly redemptive story line as a bastard with a heart of gold. The only problem is that, as a result, he comes off better than Darcy, who never deviates from the book version and suffers because of it. With all the supporting characters suddenly so vibrantly fleshed-out, choosing to maintain Darcy's aloofness renders him less a romantic hero and more of a curmudgeonly turd. He ends up with the right woman, of course, but in this case sticking with the Austen ending - as opposed to, say, leaving the miserable bastard alone to contemplate his never-ceasing self-righteousness - was a little disappointing. I found myself wishing Amanda had ended up with Wickham, who was much more her speed, and I turned to the internet to see who agreed and that's where fanfic didn't let me down. Still, I've seen this movie countless times and it's always charming, funny and enjoyable, so it's definitely on my list of favorite adaptions. It also has some very funny lines about pubic topiaries and ladies who steer the punt from the Cambridge end.
This is, perhaps, my favorite of all of the Austen novels, and the movie does it justice, in my opinion. I love that the characters aren't young and fresh-faced fools in a rage to marry themselves off. It's romance is heightened by the fact that our heroine has resigned herself to solitude and our hero has sworn her off before they find their way to each other again. Plus "you pierce my soul" is just the best line ever.
Anne Elliott is an unmarried woman in her late 20's who, in spite of two previous marriage proposals, is largely reconciled to whiling her days away in elegant spinsterhood at the familial estate in the country, plagued only by her vain, foppish father and equally vapid older sister. Anne's unexpected reunion with the only man she's ever loved, the once rejected, now unreachable Captain Wentworth, is full of the little agonies and delights of falling in love. Every snub and every glance is full of frisson, and Amanda Root conveys Anne's quiet dignity as she navigates it all to perfection. Ciaran Hinds is no slouch as Captain Wentworth, going through the motions of courting other women but really bringing the passion once he realizes it's Anne he's wanted all along. This is totally a movie I watch when I'm home sick or just gloomy about the world, because as long as Anne and Captain Wentworth can find their way to each other again and again, then things can't be all that bad.
Because duh. I own both the book and the movie, although I find the movie superior because Colin Firth, plus that hilariously pathetic street fighting scene. Mr. Darcy throwing his battered suit jacket over his shoulder and strolling away slays me every time.
This is, obviously, the Gold Standard of adaptions. Colin Firth as Darcy does this thing with his face where the muscles are fighting to let his emotions through but somehow still can't conquer his will to control them. Jennifer Ehle is sublime. It has Saffy from AbFab being an utter brat. Above all, it's largely loyal to the book, which has perhaps won this adaption it's place at the top of many an Austenites list just as much as any soak-shirted lake scene has.
There are, of course, more adaptions of Austen's work than I can possibly cover in one blog post, and many that I've seen or read but found disappointing. I hear I need to watch the Romola Garai-lead version of Emma, and in researching the topic for this post I've just come across Kandukondain Kandukondain, which seems to be highly recommended. It also stars Aishwarya Rai, who was in Bride and Prejudice, which I debated covering but honestly didn't much care for, as I find Martin Henderson exceedingly creepy. Then, of course, there's the promise of more Austen adaptions. Lost in Austen is getting an American rewrite. And, while I have no reason to believe it will ever be made, my own personal favorite Austen adaption can be summed up by this Twitter exhange:
Tell me: who wouldn't want to see this unfold?
First up is Make Up by Michelle Phan. I, like many, have been a fan of her makeup tutorials on YouTube for quite some time, so I was curious to see how her five-minute beauty videos, which are constantly evolving to keep abreast with what's trending, would translate into the less flexible format of a book. The result is a glossy, photo-rich, breezy collection of mostly makeup advice, with biographical details and life advice thrown in. 
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