Northanger Abbey (Katharine Schlesinger, Peter Firth)

(Amazon UK link)

I was on a long flight, with personal choice of video to watch. I opted for an adaptation of one of my favourite Jane Austen books, 'Northanger Abbey'. It was made for TV by the BBC, who are usually very good at period dramas of this kind, so I had high hopes for it.

Katharine Schlesinger plays the hapless Catherine Morland. She stars in this story as a young girl longing for adventure. But her imagination runs riot, and she envisions all kinds of dreadful deeds taking place amongst even the pleasantest of homes.

Unfortunately, I did not much enjoy the movie. While much of the text was (to my memory, anyway) fairly true to the book, none of the characters was particularly appealing. Catherine, admittedly, is supposed to be rather annoyingly silly. But none of the others were a great deal better.

In addition, the director appear to have missed the point of the book. It was ironic, poking fun at the plethora of 'gothic' novels which were so popular with teenage girls at the time. But instead of warmth and humour, this film seemed to glory in the gothic horror, producing some scenes that I couldn't quite bear to watch, as part of Catherine's nightmares.

The rest of it was, I suppose, pleasant enough. It told the Austen story, albeit from a perspective entirely lacking in humour. But I don't think I'll be watching this again.

Note: later on we acquired the ITV adaptation of Northanger Abbey, which I liked a great deal better.

Review copyright Sue's DVD Reviews