Northanger Abbey (2008/ITV)

[mariness]

After the snooze fest that was Mansfield Park I approached this one in the hopes that it, too, would send me to sleep in an insomnia but too exhausted to think moment. Naturally, it turned out to be absorbing, and one of the better Austen adaptations I've seen – although, fair warning for purists: quite a lot is left out, and even I noticed that the Bath scenes are distinctly not set in Bath. (Apparently this was filmed in Dublin, presumably for budget reasons.)

I was, however, sorry to find that my all time favorite quote from Northanger Abbey, on history, was left out:

"I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all -- it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention. The speeches that are put into the heroes' mouths, their thoughts and designs -- the chief of all this must be invention, and invention is what delights me in other books."

Oh well. The casting is uniformly excellent, and if Isabella Thorpe's dress is cut a little lower than I think was entirely usual in the Regency period (I spent much of the film waiting for her breasts to just ahead and pop out entirely) it does seem to be in character. (Catherine displays a more proper amount of skin.)

Also, apparently the American version is missing a sex scene. Or a fantasy sex scene, to be more precise. But this I can live without in my Austen films.