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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Lost in Austen


'Lost in Austen' is a four-part 2008 British television series for the ITV network, written by Guy Andrews as a fantasy adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Loosely following the plot of Austen's novel, it sees a modern girl, Amanda Price, somehow transported into the events of the book via a portal located in her bathroom.
Amanda loves Austen--for all the right reasons really. She loves the manners, the attention to details that the characters have, and that things matter. Appearances and rules are important to Amanda. He love interest is someone who lacks all of these qualities and she has struggled with what to do--should she stay or should she go. Enter Elizabeth Bennet. Right out of Amanda's favorite Austen novel. Through the looking glass-okay, not really. But through a door in the bathroom wall, which is a link from Amanda's flat in Hammersmith to the early 19th century home of the Bennet's, of Pride and Prejudice fame. Elizabeth choses to stay in Amanda's world and Amanda is left to cope with Elizabeth's--she tries valiantly to ensure that all the relationships that are supposed to come to fruition in the novel do, and of course it all goes horribly wrong, until, in the end, it all goes very right. Some sticklers for the original story, or who cannot suspend belief long enough to allow the tenets of the new story to take hold may be appalled. But I loved it.

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