Miss Austen (Miniseries)
Sep. 20th, 2025 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakMiss Austen: is a delightful four part miniseries. Now with the exception of the excellent Miss Austen Regrets, featuring Olivia Williams as an older Jane A., biographical media on Jane Austen has suffered from the usual flaw of biopics or bio series focusing on female authors, i.e. insisting on inflicting plots of their most popular work on their life. Miss Austen also avoids this, not least by the fact the titular Miss isn’t Jane, it’s her older sister Cassandra, played in middle age by a superb as usual Keeley Hawes and in flashbacks when young by SinnØve Karlsen, who is so versatile that despite having seen her being very good as Clarice Orsini, Lorenzo de’ Medici’s wife in Medici and superb most recently as Bayta in Foundation’s third season, I didn’t recognise her until googling her. (In addition to great acting, I blame the regency outfit and hairstyle in the flashbcks. *g*) Jane Austen is played by Patsy Ferran who is also great, both when being mischievous and witty, passionate about writing and her sister, and depressed (for various reasons, not least the early lack of success). In fact, this miniseries has led me to the conclusion that Jane Austen is like Benjamin Franklin in that the best way to treat her is as a supporting character where she can shine and leave the audience asking for more, whereas when Ben or Jane get the main character treatment, the increased focus reduces their charisma and attraction.
(This is also why back in my Highlander days, I never wanted a Methos spin-off, despite being as fond of the character as any other fan. He is perhaps THE example of a character who needs to remain a recurring guest star in order to maintain what makes their charm and mystery.)
Anyway: Miss Austen has a framing narration, in which long after Jane’s death, Cassandra gets notified of the impending demise of another relation, and rushes to his deathbed, less because of the man and more because he’s the widower of her cousin Eliza who has a lot of hers and Jane’s personal letters, and also because of his youngest daughter Isabella (Rose Leslie), who is the sole character in this miniseries who gets a straightforward Austen-ian plot and romance (bullied and exploited younger sister, in repressed love with young earnest doctor who was previously refused (courtesy of older relations) for his low social standing and lack of prospects). Another uninvited guest is Mary (played by Jessica Hynes in Victorian times and Liv Hill, most recently a great young Catherine de’ Medici, in the Regency era), Cassandra’s and Jane’s sister-in-law, on the hunt for Jane’s letters to be published (if you know about the fate of those letters you can guess where this is going), and a good example of how the miniseries uses Austen types while creating its own characters; Mary has a lot of Marianne’s and Eleanor’s sister-in-law or the odious Mrs. Elton and for a lot of the framing narration is an antagonist, but then she’s also given an underlying sadness behind the malice and in the final episode the hint that much of her malice and bitterness stems from being excluded by the Jane and Cassandra sisterhood.
In between this framing story, you get flashbacks to Cassandra’s life when young, her first love Tom Fowle who dies young and tragic just after they got engaged (this sounded so novelistic that I had to look it up, and he did), and the might-have-been love, Henry, who is as worthy as Captain Wentworth (Persuasion, not Pride and Prejudice, is the Austen novel most influential on this miniseries) but whose proposal Cassandra must reject for a combination of reasons the plot reveals, and her True Love, who is of course Jane. (And vice versa.) Seriously, though young Cassandra’s romantic woes get their narrative space in the first two episodes, the relationship at the heart of them is the one with Jane, with the third and fourth episode emphasizing Cassandra’s role as beta-reader and support for her much as Jane was her emotional support in the first two, and also as the practical one who comes up with living solutions after their father’s death. The miniseries also include the one proposal Jane accepts and the morning after rejects, which plays a far larger role in other bio fiction featuring Jane Austen, whereas in this miniseries the fastly regretted acceptance happens out of a combination of Jane being tipsy and still picqued at Cassandra for not having accepted Henry H’s proposal, and isn’t a big deal once it’s over. The gimmick question of the miniseries not being “did Jane Austen have a romantic experience?” But “why did Cassandra burn those letters?”, with the audience understanding at the end why she does it.
I’m not a historical fashion expert, but my lay woman’s impression was that the series does a great job with both the regency wear for young Cassy and Jane, and the Victorian get up Keeley Hawes et all are dessed in the framing narration. Like I said, all actors in both timelines are excellents, and while young Cassandra’s two love interests and Isabella’s are suitably handsome, this is really a female centric story, with the Austen sisters, their sister-in-law Mary, Isabella and Dina the servant as the main characters who get the narration going. The script manages to avoid the obvious quotes while coming up for Austenish sounding things the characters to say, and does great both with the social comedy of manners and the emotional drama. All in all really superb. Anyone either German like me or French: I watched it on ARTE, which also offers the undubbed, original version. Enjoy!
(This is also why back in my Highlander days, I never wanted a Methos spin-off, despite being as fond of the character as any other fan. He is perhaps THE example of a character who needs to remain a recurring guest star in order to maintain what makes their charm and mystery.)
Anyway: Miss Austen has a framing narration, in which long after Jane’s death, Cassandra gets notified of the impending demise of another relation, and rushes to his deathbed, less because of the man and more because he’s the widower of her cousin Eliza who has a lot of hers and Jane’s personal letters, and also because of his youngest daughter Isabella (Rose Leslie), who is the sole character in this miniseries who gets a straightforward Austen-ian plot and romance (bullied and exploited younger sister, in repressed love with young earnest doctor who was previously refused (courtesy of older relations) for his low social standing and lack of prospects). Another uninvited guest is Mary (played by Jessica Hynes in Victorian times and Liv Hill, most recently a great young Catherine de’ Medici, in the Regency era), Cassandra’s and Jane’s sister-in-law, on the hunt for Jane’s letters to be published (if you know about the fate of those letters you can guess where this is going), and a good example of how the miniseries uses Austen types while creating its own characters; Mary has a lot of Marianne’s and Eleanor’s sister-in-law or the odious Mrs. Elton and for a lot of the framing narration is an antagonist, but then she’s also given an underlying sadness behind the malice and in the final episode the hint that much of her malice and bitterness stems from being excluded by the Jane and Cassandra sisterhood.
In between this framing story, you get flashbacks to Cassandra’s life when young, her first love Tom Fowle who dies young and tragic just after they got engaged (this sounded so novelistic that I had to look it up, and he did), and the might-have-been love, Henry, who is as worthy as Captain Wentworth (Persuasion, not Pride and Prejudice, is the Austen novel most influential on this miniseries) but whose proposal Cassandra must reject for a combination of reasons the plot reveals, and her True Love, who is of course Jane. (And vice versa.) Seriously, though young Cassandra’s romantic woes get their narrative space in the first two episodes, the relationship at the heart of them is the one with Jane, with the third and fourth episode emphasizing Cassandra’s role as beta-reader and support for her much as Jane was her emotional support in the first two, and also as the practical one who comes up with living solutions after their father’s death. The miniseries also include the one proposal Jane accepts and the morning after rejects, which plays a far larger role in other bio fiction featuring Jane Austen, whereas in this miniseries the fastly regretted acceptance happens out of a combination of Jane being tipsy and still picqued at Cassandra for not having accepted Henry H’s proposal, and isn’t a big deal once it’s over. The gimmick question of the miniseries not being “did Jane Austen have a romantic experience?” But “why did Cassandra burn those letters?”, with the audience understanding at the end why she does it.
I’m not a historical fashion expert, but my lay woman’s impression was that the series does a great job with both the regency wear for young Cassy and Jane, and the Victorian get up Keeley Hawes et all are dessed in the framing narration. Like I said, all actors in both timelines are excellents, and while young Cassandra’s two love interests and Isabella’s are suitably handsome, this is really a female centric story, with the Austen sisters, their sister-in-law Mary, Isabella and Dina the servant as the main characters who get the narration going. The script manages to avoid the obvious quotes while coming up for Austenish sounding things the characters to say, and does great both with the social comedy of manners and the emotional drama. All in all really superb. Anyone either German like me or French: I watched it on ARTE, which also offers the undubbed, original version. Enjoy!
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Date: 2025-09-20 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-20 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-20 05:08 pm (UTC)Random trivia fact - Alfred Enoch, who plays Isabella’s love interest is William (Ian Chesterton) Russell’s son.
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Date: 2025-09-24 01:38 pm (UTC)Alfred Enoch: it's a small British acting world, clearly! He was good in the part.
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Date: 2025-09-20 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-24 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-24 03:49 pm (UTC)But any excuse for B/A :)
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Date: 2025-09-21 06:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-24 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-23 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-24 01:45 pm (UTC)