| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
This is an uncommonly intelligent film, smart and amusing too, and anyone who thinks it is not faithful to Austen doesn't know the author but only her plots.
|
| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Intelligence and beauty -- and teasing romance -- shape Mansfield Park into a gorgeous, enchanting experience.
|
| 91 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Daring, gorgeous.
|
| 90 |
TNT RoughCut
Sarah Raskin
The only fault I found was a lengthy build to the story's political climax (there's a subplot about slavery), after which the film quickly seams up its unravelings and ends.
|
| 90 |
Newsweek
Rozema's handling of the entangled amours and social gamesmanship at Mansfield Park is delightful and the open-minded moviegoer will have a hard time resisting this stylish and stirring movie.
|
| 88 |
Charlotte Observer
A love story more involved than I can easily explain.
|
| 88 |
Baltimore Sun
A thoughtful, engaging film.
|
| 83 |
Entertainment Weekly
The Australian actress Frances O'Connor is a true find. She's as beautiful as the young Barbara Hershey, with a stare that's pensive yet playful, and she puts us in touch with the quiet battle of emotions in Fanny.
|
| 83 |
Portland Oregonian
Piquant, playful, and, in many ways, just as appealing as blockbusters such as "Pride and Prejudice."
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
It isn't Austen, but it's delicious fun.
|
| 80 |
The New York Times
Ms. Rozema has made a film whose satiric bite is sharper than that of the usual high-toned romantic costume drama.
|
| 80 |
Time
Well acted, and it achieves a strong, smart, engaging life of its own.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Why should we keep seeing Austen fresh, through our own, modern eyes? Because she's a writer who has never really left our field of vision. And, as this new Mansfield Park proves again, she never will.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Enormously satisfying.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Loses much of the book's complexity but gains dramatic power from a cleverly streamlined screenplay... and several persuasive performances. No previous movie has made Austen's vision seem so vivid and alive for contemporary times.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
O'Connor plays Fanny with an appealingly direct, unflinching gaze.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
Stylish and arrives at a satisfying cumulative weight, even if it isn't Austen pure.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
The latest and loosest -- in the saucy sense of the word as well -- adaptation of (Austen's) sly comedies of uppercrust manners.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Examiner
What's on the screen may not be a letter-perfect Mansfield Park, but something true to its spirit.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
Rozema seems determined to defrill the Austen trend and charge it with a fiercer sort of femininity.
|
| 70 |
Dallas Observer
O'Connor as Fanny is irresistibly appealing.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Although Mansfield Park is an enjoyable film, you can't help but wish that it were as brave, feisty and unconventional as it keeps telling us its heroine is.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Quick and funny, and a refreshing break from period-film stuffiness.
|
| 62 |
Mr. Showbiz
"Run mad whenever you choose, but do not faint," Austen wrote in her early journals. Despite its brazen politics, Mansfield Park never goes giddily amok as promised.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
An engaging bit of entertainment.
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
Ronnie Scheib
There's something more than a little perverse about taking one of the most timid, self-effacing heroines in English literature and turning her into a paragon of modern free-spirited womanhood.
|
| 60 |
Los Angeles Times
It's an interesting take, and it always holds our interest, but it's finally too ham-fisted to be a completely winning one.
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
Justine Elias
In trying so hard to entertain, ends up sabotaging itself.
|
| 50 |
Variety
But there's little sense of a longer dramatic arc stretching across the characters: Rozema can't seem to hold a single tone for more than a few minutes, and she has too many other axes to grind besides just getting the story up on the screen.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
Not since Demi Moore lived happily ever after in "The Scarlet Letter" has a filmmaker felt so free to fudge a famous plot.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
A confusing jumble of historical drama and modern social essay that only serves to cloud the whole field of Jane Austen studies.
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