Why a frothy Jane Austen adaptation is always imminent
From our UK edition
There has never been a good screen adaptation of a Jane Austen novel. There have been plenty of films with plots and characters vaguely based on her work, many of them excellent. Who could forget Matthew Macfadyen’s trembling Mr Darcy confessing his passion to Elizabeth Bennet in the lashing rain, or Colin Firth’s entry to the Mr Wet Shirt contest 1813? Yet people who have only seen the screen adaptations think of Austen as the writer of dull, silly stories where nothing much happens. Now imagine that you had to watch, with no context, someone slowly, patiently defusing a bomb. You would have no idea how much every tiny movement mattered; how high the stakes were for the smallest slip. Hollywood keeps mistaking Austen for a writer of Regency romances. She is not.
