The trailer for ‘Persuasion’, the feature film debut of British theater director Carrie Cracknell, was released in mid-June. Attacks on social media, led by fans of the Jane Austen novel on which the film is based, soon followed. Viewers objected to the flashes of contemporary language (“exes,” “a 10”) and the moments when Dakota Johnson, who plays the heroine Anne Elliot, addresses the camera directly. There were complaints about the Regency novel’s “Fleabag”ification and its emphasis on comedy. “Jane Austen is turning in her grave,” read a headline in the Daily Mail.
Cracknell, 41, speaks during a video call from her London home, doesn’t see it that way.
“The film was made with an enormous amount of love and consideration for the source material and a genuine candid respect for Jane Austen,” she said. “No attempt has been made to dismantle the original material.”
A drama prodigy and co-leader of a major London theater before she was 30, Cracknell has always focused on female experience in her work. The complicated nature of Anne, who rejected a lover in her youth and has since regretted it, strongly appealed to her. And the playful script, by Alice Victoria Winslow and Ron Bass, provided an opportunity, Cracknell said, “to speak to a new audience that may not know Austen.”
Before that new audience could stream the film on Netflix starting Friday, Cracknell discussed the reaction to the trailer and why the film has so few hoods.
These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Why “belief”?
I absolutely love the novel. There is an incredible longing and melancholy. But it comes with the sardonic humor of Anne’s character. Anne is long-suffering, but also observant, clear and funny.
How would we diagnose Anne? Is she depressed?
I don’t know if I want to diagnose her, to be honest. There was an option for freedom, there was an option for a full life, there was an option to grow up, and she turned it down. So she is trapped in this endless youth. She is completely dependent on her family, has no space of her own and no freedom of choice, which causes a kind of malaise. I see it more as a coincidence than necessarily as a central part of her emotional landscape or being. Because I think she has a real aptitude for joy.
I was diagnosed with malaise years ago. For real.
Like you needed fragrance salt to bring you back?
Yes. Or a glass of Madeira. Austen’s great literary innovation is an inflected third person narration. This movie uses direct address instead. Why?
Direct addressing gave us the opportunity to dig up Anne’s inner life and also makes us her confidante. I hope we have balanced the use of direct address so that there is still complexity and churn and hidden inner life.
The script also uses modern language. Why?
I was interested in the slightly more modern psychology and language, because it allows us to frame the characters in a very accessible, contemporary way. One of the great hopes I had for the film was to attract a new audience to Austen and make them feel like they really recognize the people on the screen.
Do we lose something if we lose the language of that time?
I think that’s up to you to say. I really enjoy the playfulness and the iconoclasm.
And now a hard question: why are there so few bonnets?
We’ve really tried to honor the form and essence of the Regency form, but simplify it and strip away extra details. Sometimes when watching historical movies there is a lot between me and the person. To let that go and find an aesthetic that has less of the trappings of the period felt liberating.
For me, color-conscious casting is about the widest possible audience that sees themselves represented in these classic stories, which in the past felt exclusive and exclusive. The construction of any historical piece is an act of imagination, and in this case it became an ambitious act of imagination, which is to make a much wider audience feel that they belong in this world and that they have access to this story.
Your theater work has often explored feminist themes. Is this a feminist work?
I watched a slew of Jane Austen adaptations with my daughter in preparation for filming. One night she said to me, ‘Why do all women always fall over? They always cry and always get sick.” We wanted to make a version that had a slightly more edgy, questioning and challenging quality so that it would appeal to a young, much more feminist audience. Jane Austen definitely questioned the structures and boundaries in which women found themselves.
When the trailer was released, the response was passionate. Were you surprised?
People have strong opinions about Jane Austen. And they feel a tremendous amount of ownership. Almost every adjustment gets a boost. The trailer focuses much more on the film’s comedic quality than on the more mature melancholic elements. Some people, for whom the book is their favorite, didn’t necessarily see that represented. I hope when they see the film they will enjoy that tonal balance.