Catherine could easily come across as silly, what with her dramatic and rather silly mental dramas. She’s an excellent balance of youthful naivete and earnest goodwill. Heroines – “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures.”įelicity Jones is pitch perfect for Catherine. But it does a nice job of bookending the story and, again, giving it that meta sense that the book itself had with regards to stories: stories talking about stories, heroines inspiring heroines, and so on. The voice, meant to be Jane Austen I believe, only really picks up at the beginning and the ending of the movie. The movie also makes good use of the narrator.

And, what’s more, we’re given a red herring explanation for why she is suddenly thrown out by General Tilney. The audience, like Catherine, is left in suspense of his thoughts and feelings. It does lose some of the gallantry of Henry, but probably makes for a more dramatic move overall. There are a few bigger changes towards the end of the movie with the order of operations between Henry discovering Catherine’s suspicions about his family and her being turned out of the house. Isabella, before Catherine wakes up to her true character, is a helpless victim of Captain Tilney’s. Henry, of course gets to be the hero, while John Thorpe and Captain Tilney are villains. The movie also cleverly uses the same actors in many of the fanciful imagings, highlighting how Catherine herself is casting those around her. They’re handily sprinkled throughout the movie, so from the very beginning, we have a clear idea of Catherine’s own head space. The dream sequences are probably the most notable point out of those three. And it manages to use a clever device of dream sequences to capture Austen’s satiric intent with Catherine’s preoccupation with gothic novels and the fanciful thoughts they can bring about.

The tone is just right, landing somewhere happily between romance and comedy. But in comparison to the book itself, I feel like it hits all the right points. I really like this adaptation of “Northanger Abbey.” To be fair, I haven’t seen any others, so there isn’t much of a comparison to be had. Actors: Catherine Morland – Felicity JonesĬomparison – “ Indulge your imagination in every possible flight.”

Northanger abbey movies