Mansfield Park does suffer from very “period” attitudes, although not as much as its detractors claim. You will see moments below where I have softened the characters’ behaviors somewhat to plug plot holes or smooth over stuff that tends to rub modern readers the wrong way. I personally feel like the novel suffers more from not enough forward momentum and too much thousand-foot-view of what’s going on; we’re often told what’s happening in general terms without citing specific incidents. Mansfield Park also has a highly intrusive, somewhat fourth-wall-breaking narrator who delights in telling the reader about hypothetical alternative outcomes.

In a word, the best solution to filming Mansfield Park is to go full Princess Bride…

This is a hypothetical miniseries of five to eight episodes of around an hour apiece, with a modern budget, and a framing device where we see Jane Austen and Cassandra Austen discussing the story at the start of each episode and then transitioning into voiceover narration. For the Austen sisters, we will need two British actresses of approximately the right age and appearance with voices that are pleasant to listen to but distinctly different from each other:

-Cassandra is basically the voice of the reader; she objects to Sir Thomas’s plantations in Antigua, Jane tells her that part of what delays him while he’s over there is that he is freeing his slaves, “but the publisher may not permit me to include that.” Cassandra begs with Jane to let Henry win Fanny, and she gets an ambiguous initial answer followed by his elopement with Maria Rushworth. She asks about how specific incidents turn out, like Sir Thomas sounding out Maria about breaking her engagement, and Jane gives her the hypothetical of how it could have turned out (which we see onscreen with a minimum of narration), and then Jane gives her how it actually turned out. I imagine Cassandra with a mature, soothing voice along the lines of the late Barbara Shelley as Aunt Gardiner in P&P 1980.

-I imagine Jane Austen as sounding a bit like Gemma Arterton or Librivox narrator Karen Savage. But I’m not casting Arterton in the role unless she deflates her lips or lets us cgi them down to a more Regency shape or something. The great author comes off as intelligent, invested in the story she’s telling us, but with a quietly impish and ironic quality. I know I shouldn’t have her tell Cassandra, during one of the moments where the characters are worried about the family patriarch’s return, that Sir Thomas will not be eaten by eels (“or any other form of sealife”) at this time, but I’m sorry, I can’t resist.

-prologue: We start with Jane Austen writing at her desk, putting away what she’s working on when Cassandra approaches. Cassandra asks her about the new novel; Jane says it’s about “ordination, and Lovers’ Vows. And a great many trees.” She starts to narrate, over footage of a party set roughly a quarter century before the main part of the plot: “Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scruple to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them. Miss Ward found herself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris, a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely any private fortune, and Miss Frances fared yet worse, for she married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family, and she did it very thoroughly.”

-As the narration ends, we learn through dialogue that Sir Thomas and his wife Lady Bertram (nee Maria Ward) are hosting an engagement party for her sister Miss Julia(1) Ward and his friend the Rev. Mr. Norris. I imagine the latter as having a rather meek, henpecked personality. We meet Miss Frances Ward and her suitor Mr. William(2) Price, a lieutenant of marines. Julia kind of sneers at Price, who is socially a long way beneath the Wards, Norrises, and especially the Bertrams. Then Frances drops the bombshell that she and the lieutenant have married. Julia Ward insults Frances and her new husband at great length, calling him a man without education, fortune, or connections. In the ensuing quarrel, Frances basically says she wants nothing to do with any of them and storms out with her husband.

-Surely they did not cut off all ties? Cassandra asks. Jane explains: “…By the end of eleven years, Mrs. Price could no longer afford to cherish pride or resentment, or to lose one connection that might possibly assist her. A large and still increasing family, an husband disabled for active service, but not the less equal to company and good liquor, and a very small income to supply their wants, made her eager to regain the friends she had so carelessly sacrificed.” She adds that Sir Thomas helped get the eldest Price son, a boy of ten, a position as a cabin boy on a Naval vessel, and Mrs. Norris had another idea for the relief of her sister. The process of Mrs. Norris convincing the Bertrams to take in the eldest Price daughter, Fanny, and Fanny’s discomfort on arrival follow pretty much as in the book, with a minimum of voiceover, as does Edmund helping her to write to William. A few growing-up vignettes follow:

–the groom mounting her on her first pony (gray) with Edmund standing at its head, and him coaxing her along until she realizes she enjoys this.

–The governess Miss Lee being nice to Fanny, while Maria and Julia bad-mouth their cousin to their aunt, who amplifies their complaints, and their mother, who half-heartedly defends Fanny in her self-centered way, while asking her to run some errand.

–Tom and Edmund coming home from boarding school; Tom teases her in a big-brother way while Edmund asks how William is getting on and whether she’s read any interesting books lately. It’s mentioned that neither of the boys are around much because of school; I am no fan of first cousin marriage but Mansfield haters vastly exaggerate the degree to which Fanny and Edmund would have been around each other when she was growing up. Possibly somewhere in here it comes up that Fanny doesn’t write to the rest of her family much because William’s the only one who writes back.

–Julia making a footstool that wobbles and giving it to Fanny because “it’s too ill-done for the drawing room.” Fanny’s inordinate delight.

–Edmund realizing that there’s no fire in the East room, which Fanny constantly uses, and wanting to fix that. Fanny persuades him not to, saying that it is warm enough most of the year, and if there is a fire Mrs. Norris will want to use the room as well. He seems a little skeptical but he agrees to let the issue go. (Edmund’s failure to do anything about the lack of a fire in the East room is one of his more inexplicable foulups, and this noncanonical addition is an attempt to make sense of that).

–We have the big scary sequence when Fanny is fifteen, where Mr. Norris dies and Sir Thomas and Edmund think Fanny is going to live with Mrs. Norris, and then of course Mrs. Norris doesn’t want to have her, pretty much as in the book. Cassandra speculates that Mrs. Norris might mellow out if living with Fanny, and Jane tells her Edmund certainly thinks that. Edmund then has an imagine spot, with his voiceover, where we see Mrs. Norris and Fanny living happily together, and when we snap back to the main storyline, Fanny looks as horrified as we feel. At the same time, Tom has run into debt and his father has to sell the parish living to Dr. Grant to cover the cost, rather than give it to a family friend to hold until Edmund is old enough to be ordained. Sir Thomas and Tom hash this out in a conversation which resembles the book but with enough exposition to make what is happening clear.

–Sir Thomas and Tom leave for Antigua; William visits; Edmund decides that Fanny must have a horse, and swaps one of his own riding horses for a mare suitable for a lady to ride. We have been using a teenaged actress for Fanny since Mr. Norris’s death. Tom’s return from Antigua introduces us to the grownup version of Fanny, with him reacting to how much she’s grown in his teasing, brotherly fashion. We are also introduced to Maria’s suitor Mr. Rushworth at this time, and hear word that Dr. and Mrs. Grant are expecting a visit from Mrs. Grant’s brother and sister. End of episode one.

-from here until Sir Thomas’s return, events proceed pretty much as in the book, with the following changes:

–the hijacking of Fanny’s horse is portrayed in a way that tries to soften Edmund’s role in the business as much as possible.

–satirical voiceover here and there by Jane

–A very dreamlike, fantastical feeling version of the visit to Sotherton. This is where the Edmund/Mary relationship really starts to take root, and the Henry/Maria relationship as well.

–when Mr. Yates talks about Lovers Vows, we actually see flashbacks to the rehearsals, with emphasis on the very huggy reunion between Frederick and his mother Agatha, and Amelia’s declaration of love to Anhalt, and enough mentions to make us understand which name goes with which character.

–Cassandra wants Fanny to comfort Julia when the latter is jilted by Henry; Jane allows that it *could have happened* if the two young women had had a stronger relationship (but using words actually from the book), and we see what that might have looked like, before snapping back to Julia and Fanny, both alone and unhappy.

–When Edmund talks to Fanny about the play, at some point she speculates about whether playing the role would lead to becoming the role, and if so, how far.

–We are shown things like Henry and Maria using the reunion scene as an excuse for very ardent embraces, Mary excusing Maria’s and Henry’s behavior to Rushworth, and Fanny’s stumbling delivery of Amelia’s confession of love when working as Edmund’s prompter. There’s a moment where they almost seem to connect, and then Mary comes into the East room…

When Sir Thomas finally returns, he should seem downright jolly by his standards, but in a way that’s simultaneously perfectly sincere and well-meaning and somehow kind of alarming to the youngsters. (This is one of those moments that really needed Sir Christopher Lee in the role.)

–As before stated, we are shown one of the novel’s many “could have beens” when Sir Thomas tries to see if Maria wants to break her engagement.

Regency weddings were generally not extravagant, but I think the Rushworth wedding is one of those cases where a bespoke white gown for Maria and fancy clothes for everyone might be justified.

Deprived of other company, Mary latches onto Fanny. Their strolls and conversations alternate between Mary confiding in her about Edmund, where Fanny tends to cringe and seem to be looking for a hole to crawl into, and city slicker blah blah, which Fanny tunes out (represented by either music or sounds of nature gradually drowning out Mary’s voice).

Henry returns, also latches onto Fanny. About the time he first starts saying positive things about her and how unfair it is that no one notices her is when Cassandra becomes a vocal shipper on deck. Jane will only say that he would have to greatly change his manner of living to win Fanny.

Fanny’s coming out ball should be an almost perfect fairy tale, after all the hassle of the cross and the two chains, with only the Crawfords as flies in the ointment. Edmund seeking her for comfort when he’s all peopled out should feel like a quasi romantic moment.

Henry secures William’s promotion, proposes to Fanny, enlists Sir Thomas’s aid. I think some of the previous versions downplay the extent to which Sir Thomas is moved/made uncomfortable by Fanny’s tears when he tries to get her to accept Henry, so that needs to be included. Edmund’s advice to Fanny is softened relative to the book; he supports her decision to not accept Henry at this time (as in the book), but argues that she has not spent enough time with him to truly know her own feelings. He suggests that she see more of Henry before making a final decision, with only vague hints that he thinks she will change her mind rather than “let him win you at last, Fanny!”

Fanny is sent to Portsmouth. Sir Thomas’s decision is framed more as letting her see how badly off her family is and how much she could help them as Henry’s wife, than the quasi-punishment it is in the book. The viewer is supposed to find the Price household a bit trashy but not evil people or unpleasant to watch, and Fanny’s discomfort there understandable but kind of humorous, in the same way as her discomfort around Mary Crawford is kind of humorous. I imagine her and father making spectacularly unsuccessful attempts at light conversation with each other, which her talking of trees and him of ships, each leaving the other bewildered. Cassandra doubles down on the Henry/Fanny shipping during the Portsmouth segment, as Henry/Fanny shippers generally do. We also get a visualization of Julia Norris as Julia Price, that “more respectable mother of a large family” that the narrator envisions. The Price children appear as well-behaved but unhappy, in this imagine spot and Mr. Price shows up as grovelingly deferential to his wife. Visits from Mary and Edmund (not at the same time) take the place of some of their letters. Tom’s accident and Mary’s comments on it are cut.

Our first hint that anything is wrong in the Rushworth household comes when Cassandra wonders how Julia is faring. With a bit of narration from Jane, we cut away to Julia buttonholing Yates at a party. Do you know what my sister has done now? She demands. Hmm, yes, devilish business, not at all the thing, he says. Father will be so furious when he finds out, she says. He will keep me mewed up at home and I won’t be able to bear it. Marry me, he says, and then you won’t have to. Father would never allow it, she says, it must be Gretna Green. Yates looks doubtful. Unless you’re afraid of what people will say? she taunts him. Anything to oblige a lady, he says. Even if Gretna Green ain’t quite the thing.

Cut to Lt. Price reading the gossip columns and relaying to Fanny the news of a “matrimonial fracas” in the house of Rushworth. Cassandra is horrified, and Jane walks her through the decisions that led Henry to this point, as voiceover to footage of his more PG-rated actions. Then Jane narrates the novel’s last and greatest might have been: how Fanny might have come to love him, if Henry had still been true to her by the time Mary and Edmund were married. We get to see this alternate outcome, and if it doesn’t launch a thousand fics, we will have failed in our job.

Edmund shows up soon afterwards to collect Fanny (and Susan, when asked by Fanny) to help comfort his mother. He recounts his last meeting with Mary as a flashback: in this version, it is Mary blaming Fanny that is the last straw for him, and makes him genuinely angry with Mary. During the ride to Mansfield, Fanny verbally stumbles between being glad to be with him and Susan, and distressed on the Bertrams’ account. They arrive to find that Sir Thomas is dealing with the newly wed Yates couple. Mr. Yates is wearing a lot less jewelry than usual, and when Sir Thomas asks about his debts, he says that he pawned his things to pay most of them off, and fund the trip to Gretna Green. He and Julia are both very apologetic about what they did, only realizing after the fact that they were piling grief on her family at a bad time. Sir Thomas is gracious, and offers to help Mr. Yates straighten out his finances.

Cassandra asks what became of the rest of them: Jane says that Maria lived in seclusion with Mrs. Norris to avoid scandal (cue footage of them looking miserable together in a cottage somewhere); Susan was soon as invaluable to Lady Bertram as Fanny had been (cue Susan firmly picking Pug off the sofa and setting the dog on the floor, in front of a bewildered but not angry Lady Bertram); Tom is deeply shocked by his sister’s scandal and resolved to do better (Cue him discussing something serious with his father); the Crawfords led comfortable lives but regretted what they had lost, possibly with a glimpse of Henry in cartoony hell when Jane talks about “a juster appointment hereafter.”

I suppose Edmund married Fanny after all, Cassandra says in resignation. She would make a good wife for him, after all, he shaped her every opinion. Oh yes, Jane says impishly as we flash back to one of those discussions where Edmund and Fanny didn’t quite see eye to eye about Mary Crawford, “…her *every* opinion.” But when? Cassandra asks. “I purposely abstain from dates on this occasion, and I only entreat you to believe that exactly at the time when it was quite natural that it should be so, and not a week earlier, Edmund did cease to care about Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire.” Cut to a very cute scene where Edmund admits that Fanny has been his truest friend, but now to him, she is more. Could you, he asks with great humility, could you ever learn to love a friend as something more? To me, you have been more than a friend forever and ever, she says. He’s amazed, she smiles and cries with her own daring, he comforts her, they kiss. The End.

(1) We do not have a canonical first name for the eldest Miss Ward, better known as Mrs. Norris, the nastiest Austen villainess of them all. I’m assuming that Julia Bertram was born at a time when it was clear that the Norrises would not be having any children, and was accordingly named after her aunt to keep the name going.

(2) Because his eldest son is William, Papa Price is probably also a William.