This movie had a delightfully playful way of bringing Jane Austen's book to life especially with the way the story was directed to bring you into it like a letter. It was funny, intense and captivating, and I would say (and this is probably going to be an unpopular opionion) I enjoyed the characters and storyline of this story more than Pride & Prejudice.

A respectable adaptation of Jane Austen's novel of the same name.

Mansfield Park (the movie) surely didn't get enough recognition for Frances O'Connor's performance.

I have seen many complaints about it being unfaithful to the book, but I think that the essential was to make a film faithful to the style of Jane Austen, not the plot.

Plus, for once, I thought that the 4th wall breaking was entertaining and practical in the way that it is not used to bring comical relief or to make lazy expositions.

Also, it is undoubtedly, a feminist story, but unlike the more recent Enola Holmes, it avoids historical revisionism.

My major complaint is that Patricia Rozema, maybe due to a lack of budget, shot the film like a TV movie.

Mansfield Park (1999)

A remarkably clear-headed film that make Jane Austen real and alive. The heroine here is perhaps even a bit like Austen—though the actress is prettier, by all accounts—and it includes letters read by the character that are seemingly Austen's words. But what the cast and director Patricia Rozema pull off here is fabulous.

There is no one reason this movie works so well, except of course the really scintillating, funny writing of Austen herself. The lead character is Fanny Price, played with true joy, angst, and subtle wit by Frances O'Connor. The two men who court her on and off are strong enough as men to be convincing, but they are perfectly still young men, barely more than boys in years, and they have those youthful flaws. Which is part of the fodder for Austen's wit.

And social observation. If you don't quite catch the way she plays social classes against each other you miss part of the substance. It isn't just that the poor niece ends up at the rich uncle's house, but that this same niece has the perception to see through their facades. And to keep mum until just the right moment.

This isn't a liberation film where the woman charges to victory in a big speech or by a power play. Instead—and this is one reason Austen is still readable today—the woman simply comments on the issues in a way that makes clear her more advanced views, and the obstacles slowly fall away through outside circumstances (rather than her own doing). The passivity of Fanny Price might bother some people, but that's exactly her role, as a character, in this pageant.

One last point—slavery. This is the one novel of Austen's that gets her in trouble for her languid views on the uncle's use of slaves in the West Indies. The movie seems to twist this into a more modern condemnation, which helps us stay sympathetic to the whole shebang. There is even an added scene of sketches (done in a way rather like Goya's socially critical drawings of the same time, with some Kara Walker thrown in) which make clear the crisis at hand.

If you want to dip into Austen through a movie, choose between this and the 2005 "Pride and Prejudice" and you won't be disappointed. Of course, if you want to read the book—that's even better. More modern and fresh than it "should" be for 200 years ago.