Every 10 to 15 years, an attempt at adaptation is made again “Persuasion,” Jane Austen’s emotionally nuanced final novel. Carrie Cracknell directed the latest version. Ron Bass and Alice Victoria Winslow wrote it. They took significant liberties with tone and language. Austen’s Anne Elliot is a good-natured and competent young woman who is overlooked by her silly family and unhealed from the heartbreak of her former engagement to Captain Wentworth eight years prior.
In the Netflix film (which is now streaming), Anne (Dakota Johnson) is a wine-toting klutz who tends to blurt out her thoughts at large dinner parties à la Bridget Jones. Sir Walter, her father (Richard E. Grant), goes into debt and the family moves to a smaller house in another town. Wentworth (Cosmojarvis) and Mr. Elliot, (Henry Golding), are brought back into the fold.
Austen purists will be relieved that most of the original characters (minus Mrs. Smith) remain intact – meaning that there are quite a few names and relations to keep straight. This is a list of the most important names and faces from Kellynch Hall to Uppercross to Lyme, Bath, and Lyme.
Not all characters are the same as the movie.