Everything is now in dryers and I Steri-Fabbed the mattress and box springs to keep Bug Central secure. I have yet to mop the bathroom and I'm waiting till the apartment seems ventilated enough that all the chemicals won't kill me.
I ended up liking much of the new MANSFIELD PARK. Like the one from the 1990s with Jonny Lee Miller and Frances O'Connor, the plot is heavily condensed but the tone is wrong. Both versions telegraph too much about the sexual aspects of the story and Maria Bertram's adultery far too early and blatantly. The Crawford's also speak far too openly about their evil aspirations. I suppose I'm glad the writers didn't explore what seems to me an oblique incestuous relationship in the novel; they're a rather perverse set of siblings. I like the cast of the 1997 version better - it's certainly more glamorous - but there are some excellent performances in this one. I liked very much Douglas Hodge and Jemma Redgrave as Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, although she's not the whining fool that she is in the novel, but he's really spot on.
Like the last PRIDE AND PREJUDICE with Kiera Knightly, I wish they'd given us 30-45 minutes more to smooth out things and give Mrs Norris, who's right up there with Dickens' Murdstones for evil and inhumane behavior to our heroine, a chance to step into the foreground again and do petty, mean things. If only Alison Hayes had lived to play such a role!
