Lost in Austen
Posted on April 4th, 2009
Lost in Austen
[Rating: 8/10]
Genre: time-travelling romance drama
Amanda Price, a huge Jane Austen fan, thinks that she has gone crazy when she finds Elizabeth Bennet standing in her bathroom, claiming the cupboard where the pipes are is a portal of sorts. That is until she goes through the said portal and is stunned to find herself in Elizabeth’s world (aka the novel of Pride and Prejudice), and to make things worse, she is trapped there and cannot go back; and Elizabeth is trapped in her world. So Amanda has no choice but to live with the Bennets. Her presence causes chain of events that threaten to change the whole story, but as much as she tries to prevent that from happening, Amanda grows attached to the people there and wonders if she could just accept things as they are.
Let me start off by saying that while I do think Austen did something right with her novels, I actually prefer watching film adaptations of them then reading the books (at least Austen film adaptations have been pretty decent in comparison to some other book to film attempts). While I have seen both versions of Pride and Prejudice, the BBC tv series with Colin Firth and the more recent adaptation starring Keira Knightley, I must say I like Lost in Austen the most of the three! It was actually really well made and the sets were lovely. This series is underrated! Also it was funny to see Amanda’s reactions and thoughts as her ‘perfect’ world turned out not to be as perfect as she had imagined it to be. Though I did expect the ending it still left me a little surprised. I thought it was daring of the show’s producers to go the non-conventional route. Something they did not address afterwards which I pondered over was – with that ending, does that mean the book in Amanda’s world was re-written? Because time-traveling to me usually comes with a price of sorts. I’d also have liked to see a bit more of Lizzy’s adventures in 21st century London. I felt she just more or less completely disappeared and randomly popped up in the end. I’d love to have seen her find a modern man for herself, since Amanda ended up with Darcy. Another interesting change was Bingley’s sister, Caroline… that was just really random and kind of extra if I must say, like a bit of fanservice thrown in for the male viewers or a weak attempt at spicing up the Austen created world, but it was an unexpected twist no less! And I do think that Elliott Cowan made a better Darcy than Colin Firth (never really got the hype about that lake scene haha). My favourite character of the show was Jane, who sort of took over Elizabeth’s role of responsibility since Elizabeth wasn’t there. I’m so glad she did not end up with Mr Collins. The fact that the actor for Mr Collins managed to make me repulsed by his character means that he played the role well I guess… seriously, the most repulsive version of Mr Collins I’ve seen so far. But yeah, I really recommend this short series (4 episodes) to any Austen fan out there~ or any literary fan. The through the pipes cupboard scene was rather reminiscent of Narnia~ It was just fun and original, and a delight to watch.
Filed under: drama, historical, romance